And we're at the finale! I have previously rated every other games devil triggers, with my ratings of DMC1 being found here, my DMC2 rating being found here, my DMC3 rating being found here, my DMC4 rating being found here, and my DmC:DMC rating being found here. As with before, these are all rated in terms of design, gameplay, and my own personal bias. This is meant to be a discussion starter, so while I am presenting my points, please join in the discussion. Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, share your thoughts on the DTs with everyone else.
Also, warning. I apparently like writing essays for this shit.
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Well this is odd. I technically count Nightmare as a Devil Trigger, as while it's not a devil trigger, just like with Lady in DMC4SE, it does influence combat I a way despite it not changing V. Let's get into it.
Nightmare is completely unique in the Devil May Cry series, as instead of changing into a more powerful form V instead summons this abomination, and I'm all for it. While V only gets white hair and loses some tattoos, appearance wise Nightmare is bloody amazing. While the original nightmare was essentially a living gun, this one is a giant humanoid golem, kinda like the Yellow Devil, yet it's still very much the same monster. It's body is made up of this liquid like substance with carved stone holding it together along it's arms and legs, with a sort of ribcage coming out of its chest. The glowing purple core where it's head should be is both a nice homage to the original boss fight and for the imagery of an eye. The way it's arms and legs flow into this big mass of sludge rather than hands and feet helps convey the liquid nature of the monster. And, of course, each of those finger things are complimented with a claw at the end, which actually makes the hand things feel complete. Without them, the arms would be missing something. The way it moves it great too, slowly lumbering around and swinging it's arms almost absentmindedly.
Design wise, this thing is a beast, and that translates into gameplay. This is V's trump card, the demon he brings out to wreck shop, and you feel that. While you can't directly control it, it's sure to rack up the damage and can quickly turn the tide of battle with it's high damage attacks. It's punches and hits are great at racking up damage, and it's lasers are both fast and long range, making it great for dealing with large groups, and even when you summon it a bit too far from the enemy, Nightmare can just teleport right over. Also, summoning it can be great. Having a meteor fall from the sky and blast the enemies away feels great, and having it belly flop onto enemies or erupt out of the ground it awesome, but it has it's drawbacks. Firstly, there's no way to control how Nightmare will enter the battlefield, which can put you in a tight spot if you need it in, and secondly, after you summon Nightmare theres are brief moment where it would actually be able to attack while it gets out the ground or stands up. Now, this doesn't drain your DT gauge, but it can make things harder for you.
There are some other points of note. While having Nightmare active doesn't heal V, it's revives both Griffon and Shadow and makes them invulnerable, even on Hell and Hell, which makes them very useful in the harder game modes, and you can actually control it and while it's a little cumbersome, it's pretty fun. Overall, while a bit odd and unwieldy, the benefits it brings to V are pretty good, making it an 7/10.
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Dante's Devil Trigger is fairly standard. It may seem like a carbon copy of his DMC4 Devil Trigger, but there are multiple small details that make it seperate from that design, and it's the small details that matter the most, so this is going to be quite long. So, from the top!
I described the DMC4 DT as a matured form of his DMC3 DT with similar design traits yet less basic. His coat becomes a pair of wings wrapped under his arms. However, this time they are very clearly defined as wings, having a different a sort of scales that appear as better defence for the wings rather than just the scales seen on the rest of the body, and the inner wings, while not glowing as intensely, have a pattern resembling damascus steel, like with Rebellion. While I miss how the coat would move fluidly in DMC4, the relative rigidity of the wings makes them feel stonger, like they can actually be used as wings. I like how his wings aren't completely attached to him, you can actually see a gab between the arm and wings, and the larger claws on his wings actually extends past his shoulders, and actually resembles what you see on his DMC3 Rebellion DT, and where they attach to his back looks great, with thorny scales around the base of the wings that really define them even when not in use. Oh yeah, you can actually use them this time. Sadly, there's not Alastor air raid this time around, but the glide it provides is pretty useful when you want to get away from enemies from the safety of the air, mainly because it can be activated after the DT enabled triple jump, and the animation uses the wings rather than a second air hike, a nice detail I appreciate.
His upper body is pretty much the same as his DT from 4, with better scale textures and some spikes removed from the bicep. The forearms have been given a little facelift, with the gauntlets once again looking like cooled lava, but with spikes and cracks around the knuckles and up the arms and the entirety of his palms, which makes it looks like there's actual lava underneath, which is awesome. His chest, while no longer clearly having the Los Iluminados symbol, now being closer to scars, there are even more cracks of energy on his chest, even extending to his shoulders and down his back. Something that I only realised after finding a bit weird in DMC4 is that his chest isn't a solid red, theres actually a patch or grey that I think helps break up the colouring for the better.
The legs are once again more or less the same, most of them covered in a sort of carapace, gaps of skin so he can actually move his legs, and red armour on the sides of his shins resembling cowboy boots. However, in this DT the shins don't have red scales, rather more of the black carapace, and he now has five toes instead of the more lizard like three. While I feel this is mostly inconsequential, I'm not really sure the more toes look better than the previous one, but then again, they're toes, so there's not much to get worked up over here.
Finally, the head. In my DMC4 ranking, I claimed that I didn't really like how the DT looked, citing the head as one of the reasons, and this is where I will probably differ from people, because I like this version a lot. It's going to be hard to properly justify, so bare with me for a moment. Let's start really nit-picky. The neck! I prefer the the lighter grey scales that go from the sides of his neck all the way around with the dark skin seen on his legs being only around his throat, rather than it being around the whole neck as it was in DMC4. Just more visually appealing. Now for the face.
While the spiky hair in DMC4 looked a little off to me, in DMC5 it looks a lot better. The colouring isn't as light and it actually connects to the lighter scales around his neck and the small chin spikes on his chin, which I am now assuming is demon stubble. I don't know, connecting the chin and hair spikes just adds some flow, more design cohesion. And now the red. This is where people are going to raise an eyebrow. I like it more here. It's structured better, not just jutting out onto the face. It just looked a bit odd in DMC4, and I much prefer how, while it's still sort of there, it doesn't go onto the face, being separated by the demon stubble, and glowing lines coming off the eyes still give the general shape seen in DMC4. As for the eyes, I like them. While they glow like all the rest, looking like embers which is awesome, you can see they're reptilian. As for the red horns at the back of the head, they've never looked better. They're longer than in DMC4, and as you get closer to the tip they get darker, an aspect of this DT works great with the exception of the crotch cause that looks weird to me. Design wise, I really prefer it over the DMC4 version, but honestly it's for rather arbitrary reasons, so I understand why people disagree.
Now for the gameplay, because I went 5 paragraphs ranting about the design. It's fairly similar to the DMC4 abilities, though it feels a little nerfed, though that might not be the case. While moves are boosted, it's not as constant or satisfying most of the time. While Stinger gets a drill effect, it doesn't look as powerful as it did in 4, and Balrog doesn't get any additional effects. However, other weapons benefits from DT, as Cavaliere's Full Throttle ends with the bike being thrown forwards, allowing for more damage at a greater range while keeping Dante safe, and King Cerberus gets a boost to both Revolver and Hot Stuff, with the former throwing out icicles at the end and the latter having a far greater wave of fire, increasing the range of the weapon. All of his guns are increased in damage, with Ebony & Ivory and the Coyote-A being in permanent charged mode. Trickster doesn't really benefit as much as it did in 4, as the boost it gave in DT is now standard for the style, though it does still give Dante a second Sky Star. All in all, it's pretty much the same as the DMC4 version, just without a few bells and whistles, which may make it worse. However, there is one more thing to talk about: Devil Sword Dante.
After entering the boss battle in Mission 12, this DT gains a massive boost in power through the addition of Swords Formations, elevating it higher than ever before. While Swords Formation is tied to the DSD, so it's not a permanent and can be used out of DT, but that doesn't change how good it is. DT now boosts all of Dante's styles, allowing a quadruple jump and additional sky star and air trick in Trickster, reduced damage and faster gauge build up in Royal Guard, an auto intercept for threats that can target multiple enemies in Gunslinger, and a boost to all attacks in Swordmaster. Swordmaster makes Dante incredible, not just adding more damage but complimenting them. While attacks like Million Stab and Full Throttle gain a million stab alongside the attack, moves like Round Trip and Pyromania are made safer by having the swords spin around Dante to damage enemies around him in a circle, with Long Barrel the swords launch the enemy into the air, Real Impact has the swords spin in front of Dante, bringing enemies closer to guarantee a hit. This makes Dante's DT so much better, making you think about what style you should be in. You can switch to Gunslinger to quickly get rid of King Cerberus' lightning balls, to Royal Guard when you feel overwhelmed, Trickster for extra maneuverability, or Swordmaster to set up for attacks. This allows Dante's DT to be elevated above his DMC4 variation for me, leading me to give it a 9/10 as, one you get the Devil Sword Dante, the ability becomes more than just a power boost.
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Here it is, the pièce de résistance, the Sin Devil Trigger! Also do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good image that does this form justice? This devil trigger is without a doubt my favourite in the game and series, so this may get a little lengthy.
I love this design so much. It conveys power. This entire design takes Dante's normal devil trigger and just goes full on demonic, and I love it. Let's start at the top. His head has become completely skull like, with needle like teeth and his jaw becoming sharp. Like with the Main DT in 2, he has two sets of horns, one point upwards from his forehead and the other coming from the base of his skull and pointing forwards. However, now the horns on his forehead are much longer, making it look like a demonic crown, with the inner parts of both pairs glowing red. His hair look like thorns made of embers, and his eyes glow with so much intensity. There are actually some lines coming off his eyes that seem to carve through the armour on his face, with one set looking like a tear trail which links back to the idea that "Devil May Cry."
Dante also gets two pairs of bat like wings, and while I first thought they looked a little small, but they'e just fine. When they're furled up they look pretty good, if a little awkward, when when they unfurl they look awesome. They resemble his normal wings, with armoured outer wings and an inner wing with Damascus steel patterns and a claw on each wing. The differences are that they are much larger, there's four of them, and the claw is just a full on finger. This make it feel like this form has much more manoeuvrability and strength than his basic form.
In terms of portraying Dante as stronger than before, be have his armoured carapace on his arms, legs and chest, being the same sort of substance as his horns, being something between black metal, bone, and cooled lava. On his forearms and shin it acts there are openings in the armour where glowing energy can be seen, almost like it's an exhaust for Dante's power. His shins are spiked with these holes under each spike, making it seem like the energy released can keep him floating off the ground alone, and while most of his forearm is covered with a sort of gauntlet of spikes, down his inner forearm there is a crack in the armour where you can see the energy underneath, and around his wrist the gauntlet moves out to make holes similar to those on the shin, but chased in such a way that Dante can move his hand around unhindered, and his shoulders arm protected by shoulder-pads of spikes. As for the chest, the armour resembles cracked stone, as if the armour was stabbed over and over again, revealing the blazing power within.
The rest of his body, the biceps, hands, torso, throat, thighs, are covered in black scales like that of a crocodile that shows off Dante's physique, sixpack and all, and his feet got back to the DMC4 three toes and his hands grow inch long talons. One odd thing is where the legs connect to the rest of the body, as the lightly armoured thighs seem a little too far from the crotch (which resembles the head of a dragon for some reason) and is a little bit barbie like, but you only really notice it when you look at the model a little too much.
Something I feel the need to mention is how this form moves and holds itself. Rather than just being Dante in a different skin, this form is a lot more beastial. It floats in the air, simply leaning in order to move around, and when still his body shudders with each breath and his head tilted downwards slightly, like a predator. It's storytelling through animation; this form is so powerful that it barely needs to move, and it's less human than any other form.
Now for gameplay. Just like the Nelo Angelo Dt from DMC3SE, it completely changes the moveset for something much more powerful. In a pretty insignificant ability, Air Raid finally makes a return, and this time all it does is seep you high up, no change to moveset, which allows you to stay safe and have your wings look their best. As for manoeuvrability, Advent gives you a teleport better than Vergil's in 4SE, and a side dodge just as good. It should also be noted that this form is a complete commitment. You can't get out of Sin DT until it's over, so you need to think about if it's worth using it. Anyway, while it only has one basic combo, that combo is devastating. The first two hits are wide swings, with the DSD switching hands, but the final blow has significant build up and is the strongest hit, great for damage. His forward and backward lock on attacks are revamps of DMC1's Vortex and Inferno abilities, being Sin Stinger and Sin Inferno. Sin Stinger is a nice fast attack and builds up damage quickly and moves around a lot, but Sin Inferno is badass. No only is it a massive AOE attack that links well into the basic combo, it has the effect of stunning all non boss enemies, which allows you to safely style on enemies, if they're still alive. The basic moveset alone earns this a high rank, but wait, there's more! The gun attack becomes The Ombra, a powerful fireball fired from the hand (that looks great, love the blue in the fire) that while outclassed by other options is great under a specific condition. The rest of the moves, on the other hand, are a little broken. The Luce has Dante fire countless laser swords from his body that home in on targets, singular or multiple, and can absolutely melt the health of enemies while making the style rank skyrocket. And then there's Demolition. This is just a on hit kill to all non boss enemies. Nothing, not Behemoth, not a Proto Angelo, nothing can survive this. The only downside is that it takes a while, which isn't that bad. And finally, Judgement. This is practically unavoidable and deals massive dame, and you're completely invincible too boot, and the only downside, being that is uses all your SDT gauge, can be bypassed by using it at the end of the gauge, making it completely risk free. This form is broken, and I love it.
But then there's Quadruple S. This is just brilliant. Rewarding stylish play with the most powerful form in the series is a genius move, and you want to use this. This allows you to bypass how Sin DT works, allowing you to use it without committing making you revaluate the moves. This is where The Ombra works best, as The Luce and Demolition are too long to use well in the limited time Quad S allows. It allows you to close the distance between Dante and the enemy better than Trickster or just incapacitate every enemy around you so you can relax a bit. This ability also has the benefit of canceling any animation, which makes it very useful for combos. What to recover from Mega Cascade faster? Quad S. Stuck in a bad spot after Hot Stuff? Quad S. It's the perfect addition to this new DT.
Overall, this Devil Trigger is the culmination of many things. The Main DT's concept, Lucia and Vergil's DT specific moves, Nelo Angelo's completely different moveset, and Dante's character. It's Dante's full potential in both design and gameplay, and there is nothing less I can give it but a 10/10 for incredible concept and execution. I love this design for all that it means, and while I feel there could be some additional things here or there, honestly I just love it. I don't know what more I can say.
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The Devil Trigger Vergil gets in his boss battle may seem like a copy of Dante's Sin DT, but as I said, it's the little details that make this great.
Let's start with the body. While the scales are mostly the same as Dante's, the armour this time is closer to silver or steel than of metal/lava/bone, and the structure is more refined than Dante's more bestial form. Vergil's carapace creates shoulder plates, shin guards and gauntlets made of spikes and scales. While his chest armour is close to Dante's, whose looked like it was split through stabs, and instead is split from each of the shoulders and meeting at the sternum, making a V (haha) with pure blue energy emanating from his chest.
His wings are also very similar to Dante's, with some small differences, being the silver outer wings and blue glow of the inner wing, though they are different as the outer wing is covered in silver reptilian scales rather than Dante's more armoured wings, the claws on his wing fingers which are a lot longer, and majorly how the wings are kept at Vergil's hips, which means he doesn't float like Sin Dante does. It's a nice way to show the difference between the brothers. However, when Vergil unfurls his wings, you can see that they're the same as Dante's.
Vergil's head is the best it's ever looked, being completely different from Dante's. Overall, it looks like a mixture of a samurai helmet and a hammerhead shark. His horns look like they're normal horns that have been sliced, with small flames coming out of of the tubes. There are some aspects resembling Dante's head, but different enough to be almost unrecognisable. For example, Vergil has horns similar to Dante's, with those on the top of his head being a lot shorter, and the ones at the side of his face are smaller and flatter, acting more like protection. His teeth are also smaller, and his eyes also have the tear marks, though a lot less noticeable, which makes sense considering his character.
Other details include his barbed tail that helps differentiate him from Dante, which comes out of the back of his neck, like all tails in the DMC series. I don't know, I like that random consistent feature of the series. And, of course, the flames coming out of his arms. While I miss the arm scabbard, I'll admit this looks great, looking like inferno blades coming out of the wrist. Badass.
Now for how it affects gameplay. This will be a bit odd as he's not playable (yet) so I will have to look at it from the perspective of his boss fight. This form obviously increases Vergil's damage output and speed, but it also prevents almost all flinching and increases the number of swords when using Blistering Swords, and as with DMC4 his basic combo gets an additional 2 hits, which I still love, though I feel it could be a little better as a boss move. Vergil also gets is his own version of Air Raid, making use of his wings for the first time by just diving at you, and while it's kinda easy to dodge, it's really cool, and is a good contrast with Sin Stinger, and I would love to use it against a line of enemies and just wipe them out. And, for his final ability, he get's the Doppelgänger. I'm actually glad this carried over from DmC:DMC, because it make Vergil so much more threatening. While it works more as a second independent basic Vergil, which wouldn't work as a playable character, it makes him much more intimidating, and sort of connects to Nero's DT in DMC4. It makes him seem a lot more powerful, like he can control two seperate bodies at once.
All up, this acts as a good culmination of both his and Dante's Devil Triggers, being both similar yet seperate from each other so that they are clearly connected to each other regardless of their differences, just as it was back in DMC3. So, just like with Dante, I give this form a 10/10 despite not being playable (yet). I should also note that there was a design for a non Sin DT for Vergil, but that wasn't shown in game so we'll leave that there. It's a 9/10 anyway.
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And now, the time has come. The legendary DEADWEIGHT himself, Nero. This is a great design, looking like a mixture between his ghost from DMC4 and that dude from the DevilMan anime thing (akira or something, I don't know). Following the previous DTs from this game, it's amazing, so lets get into it.
His skin has become this bluish green colour with a texture like the hide of a rhino or hippo, and is seen on his chest, stomach, biceps and feet. Unlike other DTs, this one seems a bit more unrefined, leading to things like Nero still having a belly button. I find that hilarious. His arms are now both Devil Bringers with additional wrist spikes and talons, but the buster arm nor longer extends from the arm itself, instead manifesting as spectral bird wings with thing clawed hands on their ridge rather than a claw, with is the case with both Dante and Vergil. While these arms can extend into wings for flying (kinda) they mainly rest on Nero's shoulders when not in use. Said shoulders have red coloured rivets made of a bone like carapace, allowing the wing hands to slot uncomfortably. This carapace continues down his back and around to the sides of his torso, before transitioning into the darker armour the Dante's DT has in the legs. Something that stands out to me is that his shins have a lot of spikes, which helps give the image of a unrefined and savage form.
As with the other forms, Nero has blue lines of light through his body, but they're different from the others. For one, they seem to mainly come from his back, as where the wings come out of his back, around the shoulder blades, the skin shares the Damascus steel pattern on Dante's wings, but much brighter then the other characters. The lines go between the individual bone scales around his sides and onto his chest, though unlike Dante, whose lines look like their the result of an injury, they simply outline his muscles. This seems to hint that he hasn't been put through as much (or stuff put through his chest) as Dante, which is a nice way of showing his relative youth. And, of course, the Devil Bringers glow blue as well.
Finally the head. It's the most obviously human of the DTs in the game, with the only inhuman characteristics, other than the skin colour, being the spikes on his chin and the flat, downwards facing horns coming from the back of his head. While the horns look identical to the ghost DTs horns, these ones are much more rough, looking like hair hardened into stone. Around his eyes, which are reptilian but also cat like, there are red markings that go from the eye, around the cheek bone, and down onto the neck. But the most defining feature is his hair, which is completely normal, just a bit longer. This is both unique for a transformation DT and awesome looking. Rather than the spiked hair, Nero gets glorious flowing locks that go past his shoulders. This once again contributes to the more youthful impression this DT gives.
In terms of gameplay, this thing is great. Attacks are once again the result of a second attack, being the bringer wings slashing with every attack, which looks fantastic, though I don't know if it provides a second hit like it did in DMC4. This unfortunately means Breakers aren't boosted by it, but thats not a big deal. Gunshots are once again complimented by summoned swords, which allows for stylish moves due to their delay, and the DT specific moves Maximum Bet and Shown return and are just as good, though this time it's all Nero, no Yamato. I like that, shows Nero's grown up. What it does boost is the Bringer. While Buster is boosted same as before, there's also the all newTM Bringer Knuckle. While I won't get into it here, entering DT allows you to use both of Nero's ghost arms to punch demons rather than just one. This mean it can come out faster, making it better for additional damage, or it can defend you during a move with large build up or cool down.
Overall, the various pieces of this DT work very well as a pseudo basic DT, like Dante's DMC3 Rebellion DT but less feral. It works well as a form created in a moment of desperation while still being his true form. As for gameplay, it does everything Nero's old DT did and more, and while it would have been nice to have a boost to the Breakers, overall this form is amazing, a definite 9/10 for solid design and influence over gameplay.
So there we have it! All of the Devil Triggers in the series ranked. Thank you for your time and sorry for the bloody lecture. I had no idea this one would be so long, and I apologise. As I said, this is meant to be a discussion starter, so please share your thoughts. Is there anything I missed or got wrong? It doesn't matter if you disagree or agree, I'm happy to hear. Once more, thank you for your time.
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