Hideaki Itsuno was ready to quit Capcom after DmC

[Odeko]

Okay, it is getting really hard to keep up with all that, so let me just state a few points from my own view.
That presentation was NOT that A was superior to B. I cant understand how this gets repeated again and again and again. Back then, where those images first got posted on GAF, a few posters kept telling the people to just watch the presentation, and how the presentation was not just those pictures, but much more than that, but it got largely ignored. Basically, as far as I understand this, there is a huge difference between being an easygoing (no matter your sexual preference) cowboy who does not have a stake in the combat, and between someone who has an angsty attitude, does not feel they belong (remember that Dante cutting himself picture? Most of that got shafted inside the game, to be honest, and got turned into a simple origin story). This is not a "A >>> B" approach, but rather shifting the protagonist to be more like B, not A. Not a judgment.

Is this truly a devious plan of mine to belittle the evils of NT? I honestly do not think so. What would I gain with that?

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I've seen the presentation. The thesis is that Dante wouldn't fit in Fight Club because he doesn't conform to the traditional definition of what the West viewed as cool. The Brokeback Mountain thing is presented as joke along the lines of "if you were to picture Dante in a Western movie, THIS is what he would be in" and then the presenter uses that as the entire reasoning behind why they had to reinvent the character.

That presentation is effectively "we re-imagined Dante because the old one comes off as too gay"

 

[V_Arnold]

I've seen the presentation. The thesis is that Dante wouldn't fit in in Fight Club because he doesn't conform to the traditional definition of what the West viewed as cool. The Brokeback Mountain thing is presented as joke along the lines of "if you were to picture Dante in a Western movie, THIS is what he would be in" and then he uses that as the entire reasoning behind why we have to reinvent the character.

That presentation is effectively "we re-imagined Dante because the old one comes off as too gay"

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If that is the case, and the gayness was truly implied (in a pejorative way), then yeah, I concede my point, and that is bad.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Can we just add to the OP to clarify this mess that "After DmC" doesn't mean "Because of DmC"? It's establishing a time frame, not a cause.

I can imagine this is where the bulk of the drama is based on.

 

[germuso]

What is the difference between DmC and a classic DMC combat?

 

[Weltall Zero]

As someone who hates the direction DmC went in, I think this is less a jab at it as it is that Itsuno wanted to focus on one game rather than being pulled in many directions. So not so much a creator unhappy with how his or his colleages' works turned out, as rather an employee fed up with management not letting him focus on his work.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

What is the difference between DmC and a classic DMC combat?

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Simplest explanation that I use is like the difference between driving an automatic car and driving a manual car.

 

[Odeko]

What is the difference between DmC and a classic DMC combat?

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Classic DMC is a lot more responsive and affords way more player expression in how creative and deep you can get. The scoring system is also a lot harsher which works as good incentive to really dive into the combat and git gud at it.

DmC on release was a bit more streamlined and simplified, but still definitely playable. However, it had some pretty severe miss-steps, like no lock-on, 30 FPS, and enemies that demanded you use specific weapons instead of allowing you the freedom to string combos together. Also Virgil had a horrible fedora.

DmC:DE fixed a bunch of those issues (especially the fedora) and because of it is easily the best Western character action game on the market, however the underlying simplification is still there so the possibility space and skill ceiling is still a lot lower than DMC 3-5.

 

[dimasok]

DmC dante sucked. I was never a fan of DMC4 Nero either but he sort of redeemed himself in DMC5. I dont know why NT gravitates towards protagonists in their games that have issues.

 

[dimasok]

Classic DMC is a lot more responsive and affords way more player expression in how creative and deep you can get. The scoring system is also a lot harsher which works as good incentive to really dive into the combat and git gud at it.

DmC on release was a bit more streamlined and simplified, but still definitely playable. However, it had some pretty severe miss-steps, like no lock-on, 30 FPS, and enemies that demanded you use specific weapons instead of allowing you the freedom to string combos together. Also Virgil had a horrible fedora.

DmC:DE fixed a bunch of those issues (especially the fedora) and because of it is easily the best Western character action game on the market, however the underlying simplification is still there so the possibility space and skill ceiling is still a lot lower than DMC 3-5.

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Did they add lock-on and improve other things besides the 60fps that the PC version always had? If so, its criminal that PC audience never got a free upgrade

 

[Kromeo]

It's the best western developed action title of all time, but will always be shit compared to what Kamiya and Itsuno can do. Not surprised.

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Come on now, I don't dislike the game but it's no God of War 2

 

[DrDeckard]

Wait, you think Capcom sat NT down in a room and projected a slide of Dante photoshopped into Brokeback Mountain in front of them to give them instructions on the new project?

What the fuck

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No I'm saying that capcom will have given them a design brief and how to lean into the project, and then someone at capcom signed off all of that stuff.

Everything in marketing is signed off for approval.

 

[Soj]

A lot of people claim things in DMC5 that were present in DMC4 are somehow taken from DmC. I have heard people refer to Nero being a lot like Dante from DmC, which isn't even close to true. Nero in DMC5 is a lot like Nero in DMC4. I think a lot of the people who believe DMC5 takes a lot from DmC never actually played DMC4. There is a nod or two, but I don't think DMC5 took anything substantial from DmC.

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It is mainly the haircut, swearing, and more gritty aesthetic for Nero (and the game in general). There are little flourishes like the blade glint on Hard Way's charge up as well. The two characters obviously informed each other from game to game. Dante at the end of DmC and DMC5 Nero could easily be mistaken for each other.

 

[Odeko]

Did they add lock-on and improve other things besides the 60fps that the PC version always had? If so, its criminal that PC audience never got a free upgrade

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Nope! And all those things started as popular PC mods too, so basically "thanks for showing us how to fix the game nerds, now keep your old and busted version while we give all the console players the new hotness"

 

[Deleted member 2474]

Did they add lock-on and improve other things besides the 60fps that the PC version always had? If so, its criminal that PC audience never got a free upgrade

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DE added lock-on, turbo mode, hardcore mode with stricter style rankings, adjusted color-coded enemies, massive balancing changes to weapons/enemies/bosses, a new difficulty mode, all sorts of stuff - and none of that ever came to PC, which sucks ass.

there's mods for the PC version to bring over some of this stuff (in fact some of it was modded in before DE was announced), but afaik you can't totally recreate the DE experience.

 

[Gold Arsene]

Can we just add to the OP to clarify this mess that "After DmC" doesn't mean "Because of DmC"? It's establishing a time frame, not a cause.

I can imagine this is where the bulk of the drama is based on.

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No! We must make everyone hate DmC!/s

 

[Soj]

Did they add lock-on and improve other things besides the 60fps that the PC version always had? If so, its criminal that PC audience never got a free upgrade

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Yes, there's like a 20 page list of changes. If you hated the original release, you probably still wouldn't like the Definitive Edition, but it's a significantly better game.

 

[Acquiescence]

I'd wager at this point Itsuno said "We do it with NT or not at all" and they were head on in development on Hellblade at this point and now also the MS acquisition, so they ended up greenlighting 5. Cause if you look in the interview where he talks about it he says as much about how it'd be weird for a sequel to be made exclusively in Japan.

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I want to live in that alternate timeline where Ninja Theory didn't get acquired by Microsoft and Itsuno collaborated with them again for DmC 2.

 

[Odesu]

*looks at title* Well, unless it was edited, it does look like it contains the word "after" up there.

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The title could have been "Itsuno threatened to quit After DMC 4" then. Because it did Happen after dmc 4 was released right?

Look at this this thread. Its full of hot takes of people who just knew that he hated DmC all along! Thats because the OP implies correlation via the title. Theres nothing in the actual Interview implying that.

Wouldnt you agree that this title here would be way more clear and less misleading:

"Itsuno was ready to quit Capcom if they didn't agree to make DMC 5"

Paints a different picture than the one OP chose, doesnt it?

Wtf is this channel, Im listening to this interview and then one of the hosts starts downplaying sexual harrasment and trashes metoo.

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Can we also Talk about this? Do you have a timestamp? How does Reuben react? Whats this about him and conspiracy theories?

 

[Alastor3]

Timeline reads as this
Itsuno (and capcom) wants to make DmC2 with NT
NT busy with hellblade so they say no
Capcom still wants DmC2 so says to make it inhouse
Itsuno doesn't want to make DmC2 without NT so wants to make DMC5 instead
Threatens to resign unless capcom allows DMC5 since he's probably hype from making DmC

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Thanks

 

[Quacktion]

This is very interesting, Im glad it all worked out. Hell, it sounds like DmC was what caused Itsuno to get so enough power to make DMC5 what it is today, so I guess it redeemed itself.

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm sure Itsuno appreciated DmC for what it was and even some of DMC's most diehard fans can admit that there were some nuggets of good ideas they could lift from DmC into the mainline series but that doesn't mean the audience would prefer more of it, nor that a lot of Itsuno's comments about the game don't boil down to a lot of gussied up PR-talk. DmC defenders trying to use the whole "but we got style announcers from DmC and Nero says the bad word now" as some kinda gotcha against people who dislike the game will never make me stop tilting my head in confusion. It doesn't mean "hah, see DmC was actually great", it means they just took those few ideas and made a better game out of it. You can't call yourself a good game designer without taking proper account of positive influences even among things you don't particularly care for.

I can absolutely believe that he'd rather leave the company if he ended up losing control of his own baby, the same way Kamiya left. DmC might be an alright game on its own but it's really not hard to believe that he'd abandon ship if that was the direction the series would be headed towards. If he left Capcom and we never got DMC5, I'm sure we would've wound up getting a different story out of all of this.

 

[Almagest]

Aaaand, another thing to thank Itsuno for. This man really is a gift we probably don't deserve.

 

[dbcyber]

DmC had terrible PR. Can you imagine when asked about DmC by the press while DMC5 was in development, and Itsuno saying it almost made me resign, I wanted DMC my way after how that game was handled etc etc. The press would have tore into DMC5 and it would have been another bad PR situation.

DmC is the critics champion so much so they were blaming fans for its initial poor performance. Itsuno did the right thing by keeping this stuff a secret, but now the game is out, reviewed and selling well, well, no need to keep secrets.

 

[Deleted member 679]

I don't think you can brush aside Itsuno's DmC comments as "PR talk" considering the actual game is chock full of great DmC references. Actions speak louder than words.

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Spoiler: final boss spoilers

I did find it weird, though, how after so many positive references, there's a "Think you can beat me? Not in a million years" thrown in there.

Can we just add to the OP to clarify this mess that "After DmC" doesn't mean "Because of DmC"? It's establishing a time frame, not a cause.

I can imagine this is where the bulk of the drama is based on.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. When you think that Dragon's Dogma came out in 2012, Dark Arisen was made by another director and DMC4:SE came out in 2015, same year DMC5 entered full production, 3 years is a long ass time for someone of Itsuno's caliber to do nothing but a remaster with a different company involved. That must have been incredibly frustrating to him.

I imagine he was totally fine with DMC5 or a reboot by someone else because he was busy with Dragon's Dogma anyway, but then he finishes Dragon's Dogma, it sells below expectations, so they won't let him work on a sequel, and DmC also sold below expectations, so they're not too thrilled to go back to that franchise, and Itsuno just sits there doing God knows what for 2 years. And that right after having to juggle Dragon's Dogma and helping with DmC (including travelling to the UK to help hands on), he must have worked his ass off those years.

 

[FiXalaS]

Reading through the DmC vs DMC posts is annoying in this thread. Really, really pointless. Problem is that the banter just keeps getting repeated. I have no issues with people stating their opinions but man some of these posts stating "facts" are bad.

I mean come on, this is past it's time anyway, Itsuno is now at Capcom and his DMC5 just released this month. Ninja Theory is now with Microsoft and it's doubtful DmC is ever coming back. Can we move on?

 

[THErest]

Okay, it is getting really hard to keep up with all that, so let me just state a few points from my own view.
That presentation was NOT that A was superior to B. I cant understand how this gets repeated again and again and again. Back then, where those images first got posted on GAF, a few posters kept telling the people to just watch the presentation, and how the presentation was not just those pictures, but much more than that, but it got largely ignored. Basically, as far as I understand this, there is a huge difference between being an easygoing (no matter your sexual preference) cowboy who does not have a stake in the combat, and between someone who has an angsty attitude, does not feel they belong (remember that Dante cutting himself picture? Most of that got shafted inside the game, to be honest, and got turned into a simple origin story). This is not a "A >>> B" approach, but rather shifting the protagonist to be more like B, not A. Not a judgment.

Is this truly a devious plan of mine to belittle the evils of NT? I honestly do not think so. What would I gain with that?

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You have to think of the greater (hell, greatest) context. NT and Capcom are selling a product. This entire presentation is marketing. When selling a new product, any comparison to the old product must be "This is now better than it was before." You sure as hell don't sell something new and don't market it as improved.

Thus, they were absolutely painting Donte as superior to classic Dante.

 

[Odesu]

You have to think of the greater (hell, greatest) context. NT and Capcom are selling a product. This entire presentation is marketing. When selling a new product, any comparison to the old product must be "This is now better than it was before." You sure as hell don't sell something new and don't market it as improved.

Thus, they were absolutely painting Donte as superior to classic Dante.

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This wasnt Marketing though, this was an industry Talk by one of the Artists at an industry event. This Talk happened at GDC, a few months After the game released. It was only publicly uploaded in 2016. These events are full of talks that arent intended sell the game. So, no. He did'nt. And it would be really easy to See if you just watched the presentation.

 

[ElBoxy]

DmC had terrible PR. Can you imagine when asked about DmC by the press while DMC5 was in development, and Itsuno saying it almost made me resign, I wanted DMC my way after how that game was handled etc etc. The press would have tore into DMC5 and it would have been another bad PR situation.

DmC is the critics champion so much so they were blaming fans for its initial poor performance. Itsuno did the right thing by keeping this stuff a secret, but now the game is out, reviewed and selling well, well, no need to keep secrets.

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Except this isn't from Itsuno. It's from Reuben who is just a voice actor.

 

[dbcyber]

Except this isn't from Itsuno. It's from Reuben who is just a voice actor.

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Yeah true there's that. But the fact it's coming out after the game is finished is telling.

 

[NotLiquid]

Except this isn't from Itsuno. It's from Reuben who is just a voice actor.

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I'm pretty sure Reuben and Itsuno are close friends.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

I don't think this has anything to do with the final quality of DmC and more to do with the way production worked. He clearly doesn't hate DmC as a whole considering the plethora of endearing references in DMC5 (which retroactively made me like DmC more, heh!)

 

[Monster Zero]

It must be, because I see no reason to try to excuse the 30fps gameplay, by stating that it still has the feel of 60fps, and that you wouldn't notice the difference.

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"The feel of 60fps" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard gaming involved. Was dumb back then and even worse now that I've become a PC gamer.

 

[ElBoxy]

Yeah true there's that. But the fact it's coming out after the game is finished is telling.

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Not really, especially when the game has been touted as a return to form during development.

 

[TooFriendly]

I would be hard pressed to believe anything Reuben Langdon says. He's an absolute space cadet.
I was Facebook friends with him for years and it's just a constant stream of stuff about alien conspiracies, healing 'energy', crazy shit. He's like David avocado Wolf.
Just loads of delusional wishful thinking bullshit.

 

[Stef]

Can we just add to the OP to clarify this mess that "After DmC" doesn't mean "Because of DmC"? It's establishing a time frame, not a cause.

I can imagine this is where the bulk of the drama is based on.

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I agree, what would be useful.

On a side note, I like how two games with the exact same review average are treated like one is gargabe and the other one is a messiah by fanboys.

 

[THErest]

This wasnt Marketing though, this was an industry Talk by one of the Artists at an industry event. This Talk happened at GDC, a few months After the game released. It was only publicly uploaded in 2016. These events are full of talks that arent intended sell the game. So, no. He did'nt. And it would be really easy to See if you just watched the presentation.

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Ah, I see that it did happen 2 months after release. I stand corrected.

 

[Village]

DmC fans seeing what they want to see, and claiming the opposite.

There's some good ideas from DmC carried over to DMC5, but you guys are trying too hard.

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Yep, anyone who think's nero is DmC Dino outside of short hair, didn't play 4.

 

[Kaguya]

if you think this wasn't controlled by capcom then i don't know what to tell you.

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This was a presentation by NT, it wasn't about promoting the game but the developer's approach to changing/re-imagining an existing IP(mainly the art direction, it was run by NT's art director). It was at a GDC after the game's release and had nothing to do with Capcom other than that Capcom commissioned them and wanted a Dante that could be in a hollywood movie.

The homophobic bit is a joke about the artist imagining that that's the movie DMC4 Dante would fit in, and then move on to them wanting Dante to be more like a character that would fit in Fight Club.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

I agree, what would be useful.

On a side note, I like how two games with the exact same review average are treated like one is gargabe and the other one is a messiah by fanboys.

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Well there a Long history for that as well.

Putting aside the two games have two different fundamentals design in mind, a lot of the antagonism comes from drama outside of the game's development.

 

[Village]

While I do think people need to consider the idea of itsuno not shitting on DmC in public mighthave just been pr. I do think he genuinely likes the game.

That said whether he really liked it or not is irrelevant the point is he was ready to leave after DmC and I can imagine so. Because he hadn't got to do what he wanted, and had just been kinda fixing games, and even DMC4 before was rushed out of the door. He problably wanted to make a complete as DMC game. Simular Stuff Nomura was going through

 

[Odeko]

I agree, what would be useful.

On a side note, I like how two games with the exact same review average are treated like one is gargabe and the other one is a messiah by fanboys.

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Dark Souls 2 is the highest rated From Soft game too.

Mass market reviewers aren't always good at navigating the nuances of certain niches. I mean you don't even need to look another genre for an example — The Wonderful 101 has a 78 and God Hand has a 73 on Metacritic which should tell you how useful of a tool it is for scoring character action games.

 

[Village]

I agree, what would be useful.

On a side note, I like how two games with the exact same review average are treated like one is gargabe and the other one is a messiah by fanboys.

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Because one is bad and the other one is good.

Review scores are meaningless, at least to me as a consumer. I just want to play the thing I like.

 

[V_Arnold]

Come on now, I don't dislike the game but it's no God of War 2

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Its combat complexity is leagues above any God of War title.

Yep, anyone who think's nero is DmC Dino outside of short hair, didn't play 4.

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Yeah, I played through DMC4 twice when it came out, then played through DMC4SE twice when it came out. DMC5 Nero *is* DmC Dante :P

 

[Kaguya]

While I do think people need to consider the idea of itsuno not shitting on DmC in public mighthave just been pr. I do think he genuinely likes the game.

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You can generally not like something but still appreciate parts of it. It's no secret a lot of things DmC introduced made its way into DMC5, but it's also obvious enough that they kept away from the things that fans really complained about.

 

[Village]

You can generally not like something but still appreciate parts of it. It's no secret a lot of things DmC introduced made its way into DMC5, but it's also obvious enough that they kept away from the things that fans really complained about.

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Eh I dunno like. Developers , or people creating things in general can appreciate weird things that we as fans cannot for different reasons. I think he thinks DmC is kinda weird and he likes that. But I could be wrong. Either way no skin off my back, I'm personally not fond of DmC for a myriad reasons. Itsuno just seems like the kind of guy who would like some stuff because its weird and different

Yeah, I played through DMC4 twice when it came out, then played through DMC4SE twice when it came out. DMC5 Nero *is* DmC Dante :P

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...Nero in 4 and 5 are litterally the same character but better written, but hey, see what you wanna see my man.

 

[newmoneytrash]

Timeline reads as this
Itsuno (and capcom) wants to make DmC2 with NT
NT busy with hellblade so they say no
Capcom still wants DmC2 so says to make it inhouse
Itsuno doesn't want to make DmC2 without NT so wants to make DMC5 instead
Threatens to resign unless capcom allows DMC5 since he's probably hype from making DmC

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this post should be threadmarked

 

[V_Arnold]

...Nero in 4 and 5 are litterally the same character but better written, but hey, see what you wanna see my man.

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Yes, much better written. Thats a good consensus. If anything, DMC5 shows how big of a clusterfuck DMC4 was outside of its Bloody Palace mode.

 

[Eumi]

Yeah, I played through DMC4 twice when it came out, then played through DMC4SE twice when it came out. DMC5 Nero *is* DmC Dante :P

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I'm not sure you'd ever see Nero talking about how great it was to watch a baby get murdered.

 

[ElBoxy]

...Nero in 4 and 5 are litterally the same character but better written, but hey, see what you wanna see my man.

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This is a situation where both can be right.

Can we also Talk about this? Do you have a timestamp? How does Reuben react? Whats this about him and conspiracy theories?

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He isn't alt-right, at least as far as I'm aware of, but he has posted stuff on Twitter that make you question his real life morals.

 

[Waddle Dee]

I agree, what would be useful.

On a side note, I like how two games with the exact same review average are treated like one is gargabe and the other one is a messiah by fanboys.

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You really think the majority (or hell, almost any) paid reviewers have a deep interest in the character action genre? You think nearly any of them play these games at a level beyond basic button mashing? Most reviews for character action games are surface-level at best because it's a relatively niche genre that has a high skill floor you need to pass before you can really appreciate it.

I've seen about a dozen DMC5 video reviews from critics who have their reviews on metacritic, and (funnily enough) IGN is the only video review that shows a level of understanding that matches most big fans of DMC. The reviewer actually jump cancels moves, uses Nero's Exceed system properly, and switches styles mid combo as Dante.

So hopefully you now get why DMC5 and DmC having similar review averages means nothing.