Tatsuya grinned as the next cinematic finally began, but the moment the scene appeared on his television, his expression immediately changed from excitement into genuine disbelief. The image quality was ridiculous. The lighting inside the unfinished shop looked almost natural, shadows moved properly across the room, tiny environmental details filled the background, and Dante himself looked dramatically better than anything Tatsuya had expected from a launch title. His white hair moved naturally as he stepped out from the bathroom, his skin and clothing reacted properly to the light, and even simple things like the reflections on nearby objects made the entire scene feel strangely alive. Tatsuya leaned closer toward the television and muttered, "Damn… the graphics…" He had already seen trailers, but watching the game running directly from his own ZEPS 4 felt completely different.
A phone suddenly began ringing inside the shop. Dante casually walked out of the bathroom as if nothing in the world could possibly bother him, kicked a nearby chair upright with almost unnecessary style, sat down, and answered the phone. With the shop not even officially open yet and without so much as a proper name on the building, Dante casually complained that he was already receiving calls. Tatsuya immediately laughed. There was something about the man's attitude that made every movement look like he was performing for an audience even when nobody was around.
Then the door opened.
A bald man entered the building.
Dante glanced toward him without much concern and jokingly asked whether he was another customer, even offering him directions toward the bathroom in the back. The stranger ignored the joke and instead asked whether his name was Dante—the son of Sparda. Dante's casual expression changed slightly. "Where did you hear that?" The stranger simply explained that Dante's brother had sent him, delivering what he called an invitation.
Tatsuya's grin immediately widened.
"Brother… Vergil."
The opening cinematic had already established the rivalry between the two sons of Sparda, so the moment the mysterious man mentioned Dante's brother, Tatsuya knew exactly where this was going.
The stranger suddenly flipped the table directly toward Dante. Dante moved with absurd speed, landed cleanly, and reached for Ivory, aiming toward the intruder—but the man had already vanished. Dante stared at the empty space for a moment before looking around the ruined room and muttering about the "invitation."
Then the atmosphere changed completely.
Hell Pride demons suddenly appeared throughout the shop and attacked him from every direction. One buried a scythe directly through Dante's chest. Another attacked from behind. Yet Dante barely reacted. He simply walked toward his pizza as though having demonic weapons sticking through his body was more irritating than dangerous. Tatsuya's eyes widened. "What the hell!?" Dante pulled the blade free from his chest, casually used it to slice through a nearby ceiling fan, and sent the falling pieces crashing into the demons below.
Then Dante smiled.
"This party's getting crazy! Let's rock!"
Tatsuya immediately laughed. "HAHA! Okay, this guy is insane!"
Dante walked toward the jukebox and tried switching it on, only for the machine to refuse to cooperate. He stared at it for a second, then slammed it with his fist. Music immediately started playing.
Tatsuya burst out laughing again.
"Of course that works!"
The fight that followed became an almost ridiculous demonstration of everything ZAGE had been promising about Devil May Cry's combat. Dante pulled Ivory while grabbing Ebony from the floor, slid across the room while using one of the Hell Pride demons almost like a surfboard, fired into enemies while moving, and even shot a pool ball hard enough to send the remaining balls flying into the demons. When Rebellion came toward him, Dante caught the massive sword and immediately used it to slice through the pool table itself.
Tatsuya sat completely still for several seconds.
Then he slowly grinned.
"That was so damn badass."
The cinematic ended.
And finally, control returned to him.
Tatsuya immediately felt the difference.
"Ohhh…"
Dante moved instantly when he touched the analog stick. There was almost no feeling of delay between his input and Dante's movement. Tatsuya tested a few sword attacks, then fired Ebony and Ivory repeatedly while moving around the ruined shop. The vibration inside the ZEPS 4 controller responded differently depending on what he was doing—lighter pulses from the pistols, heavier impacts when Rebellion connected with an enemy, and sharper feedback when Dante took a hit.
"Oh my God, the controller feels so good!"
He grinned as Dante launched a Hell Pride into the air, jumped after it, hit it several times with Rebellion, then fired the pistols before landing. Tatsuya had played plenty of action games before, but this immediately felt different. Devil May Cry was not simply asking him to defeat enemies. It wanted him to look ridiculous while doing it.
Then he noticed the Style system.
Four icons were assigned directly to the directional pad.
Down — Royal Guard.
Left — Swordmaster.
Right — Gunslinger.
Up — Trickster.
Tatsuya paused for a second. "Wait… I can switch them during combat?"
He pressed left.
Swordmaster.
Dante's available sword techniques immediately expanded.
Tatsuya attacked another demon, experimented with the new moves, then pressed right.
Gunslinger.
His firearm options changed.
"Whoa."
He pressed up.
Trickster.
Dante suddenly gained much more mobility, allowing Tatsuya to dash away from incoming attacks far more aggressively.
Then he pressed down.
Royal Guard.
Tatsuya blocked too early and immediately got hit.
"Okay, that one is probably harder."
He laughed and tried again. This time he waited until the last possible moment before guarding. Dante absorbed the attack properly, and Tatsuya immediately understood what the style was trying to teach him. Royal Guard rewarded precise defensive timing and could eventually turn defense into powerful counterattacks. Swordmaster focused on expanding melee options. Gunslinger made firearms much more versatile. Trickster was all about movement, evasion, and positioning.
"Damn… so I can literally change how I fight depending on the situation."
That realization made him even more excited.
Instead of forcing the player into a single combat style, Devil May Cry let him alter Dante's approach in the middle of battle. Tatsuya immediately began experimenting like a man possessed. He would begin with Trickster to close distance, switch to Swordmaster once inside, launch an enemy into the air, change to Gunslinger and fire repeatedly while the demon remained airborne, then attempt Royal Guard when another enemy attacked him from behind.
Most of his attempts were messy.
Some worked beautifully.
And every time one actually worked, Tatsuya laughed.
"Heheheh! This is sick!"
The ranking system made everything worse—in the best possible way.
Simply defeating enemies was not enough. Repeating the same attacks constantly caused his style rank to stagnate, while varying his combos, avoiding damage, switching techniques, juggling enemies, and fighting aggressively caused the rank to climb. Tatsuya quickly realized the game was effectively judging him.
"Oh, you want me to show off?"
His grin widened.
"Fine."
He started playing even more recklessly.
He deliberately switched attacks even when the simpler option would have worked. He launched demons, shot them in the air, landed, switched styles, dashed through attacks, and tried to finish encounters without being touched. Sometimes he completely screwed up and lost a large portion of his health because he was trying something unnecessarily complicated.
He did not care.
He was having too much fun.
As he progressed farther through the early mission, Tatsuya also began appreciating how different the environments felt. There was exploration between fights, small puzzles, hidden items, breakable objects, Red Orbs scattered around the environment, and secret areas that immediately made him suspicious of every corner.
He spent several minutes attacking random walls because one suspicious crack looked important.
It was not.
Tatsuya stared at it.
"…Worth checking."
Eventually he discovered a Shotgun.
The moment the weapon became available, Tatsuya's eyes lit up. "Ohhh, yes."
He immediately equipped it and fired at the nearest enemy.
The controller kicked harder in his hands.
The demon was blasted backward.
Tatsuya started laughing.
"Oh, that feels GOOD."
He rapidly discovered that the Shotgun worked extremely well at close range, especially after using Rebellion to control enemies. He began switching between Ebony and Ivory for sustained ranged pressure and the Shotgun whenever something got too close. Once Gunslinger entered the equation, his firearm experimentation became even more ridiculous.
Tatsuya spent so much time testing combinations that he almost forgot he was supposed to be progressing through the mission.
Eventually, however, he reached an enormous frozen chamber.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
Cold mist filled the room. Ice covered the walls. The music quieted.
Then something massive moved in the darkness.
Tatsuya stopped touching the controller.
A huge three-headed demonic dog emerged.
Each head snarled independently, frost spilling from its mouths as enormous paws slammed against the floor. Thick layers of ice covered sections of its body like armor.
Tatsuya stared.
Then slowly smiled.
"Ohhh… this one is the first real boss, isn't it?"
The creature introduced itself as Cerberus, guardian of the place, and made it immediately clear that Dante would not be passing peacefully.
Dante, naturally, did not react like a normal human being facing a gigantic three-headed ice demon.
He mocked it.
Tatsuya burst out laughing as Dante casually treated the monster more like an oversized dog than a terrifying guardian. Cerberus roared angrily, obviously offended by Dante's complete lack of respect.
"Oh my God," Tatsuya said through his laughter. "He mocks the BOSS too!"
The fight began.
Cerberus immediately proved much more dangerous than the normal enemies Tatsuya had fought so far. Its huge paws covered large sections of the arena, ice attacks spread across the floor, and the three heads could attack independently. Tatsuya's first instinct was to rush directly toward it using Swordmaster.
Cerberus immediately slammed him backward.
"Okay!"
He laughed.
"Respect the dog. Got it."
Tatsuya quickly adjusted. He switched to Trickster and began using the additional mobility to move around the boss more safely, watching the creature's animations rather than simply attacking blindly. Cerberus covered parts of itself in thick ice, forcing Tatsuya to break through the frozen armor before dealing meaningful damage. Ebony and Ivory allowed him to chip away from a distance, while the Shotgun worked beautifully whenever he managed to move near one of the heads.
"Come on!"
He dashed away from another paw strike.
Ice exploded where Dante had been standing only a moment earlier.
Tatsuya immediately rushed back in.
Rebellion struck repeatedly against one leg.
The ice shattered.
"Yes!"
Cerberus staggered slightly.
Tatsuya switched to Swordmaster and attacked more aggressively.
He launched into another series of strikes, jumped to avoid an incoming attack, fired the Shotgun in midair, landed, switched back to Trickster, and dashed away just as Cerberus tried crushing him.
His grin widened.
He was learning.
The game was teaching him without stopping everything to explain.
Cerberus entered another attack pattern, firing waves of ice across the arena. Tatsuya narrowly avoided the first, got clipped by the second, then immediately healed himself using one of the items he had collected earlier.
"Not dying on the first boss. No way."
The three-headed demon roared.
Tatsuya laughed.
"You're big, but you're slow!"
He immediately regretted saying that when Cerberus lunged much farther than expected and nearly crushed Dante.
"WHOA!"
Tatsuya physically leaned backward despite knowing perfectly well that doing so had absolutely no effect on the game.
He burst out laughing at himself.
"Okay, okay!"
The battle continued for several more minutes, but Tatsuya was genuinely good at games. Once he understood Cerberus's basic patterns, the fight became increasingly manageable. He recognized when to attack, when to retreat, and when the boss was preparing its larger ice attacks. He experimented with Royal Guard once, successfully blocked one strike, then immediately decided he was not confident enough to risk the entire fight around perfect timing.
"Maybe later."
Instead, he returned to Trickster and Swordmaster.
Cerberus's health continued dropping.
The final portion became more aggressive, but by then Tatsuya had already found his rhythm.
He broke another layer of ice.
Dashed forward.
Switched to Swordmaster.
Rebellion struck again and again.
Cerberus tried attacking.
Tatsuya jumped.
Shotgun.
He landed.
One final series of sword strikes connected.
The massive demon collapsed.
Tatsuya's eyes widened.
Then he raised one fist.
"HELL YEAH!"
First try.
He laughed proudly and leaned back. "Heheheh! First try! Come on!"
Then the cinematic started.
Tatsuya immediately leaned forward again.
Cerberus acknowledged Dante's strength before its remaining demonic power transformed. A bright light appeared, and from within it emerged a strange weapon consisting of three connected sections.
Dante reached toward it.
Tatsuya stared.
"Wait… are those nunchucks?"
They were.
Three-section nunchaku infused with Cerberus's ice.
Dante grinned.
And then, despite there being absolutely nobody around to watch him, he began performing with the weapon.
He spun it around his body at ridiculous speed, shifted between grips, kicked one section upward, caught another behind his back, and continued moving the weapon with the precision of someone who had apparently been practicing his entire life despite only receiving it approximately five seconds earlier. Ice exploded through the air with every movement, frozen trails following each swing as Dante turned what should have been a simple weapon-acquisition scene into an unnecessary martial-arts performance.
Tatsuya stared with his mouth slightly open.
Dante finished with an absurdly confident pose.
Silence.
Nobody inside the room had been watching him.
Except Tatsuya.
For several seconds, Tatsuya simply stared.
Then he burst out laughing.
"OH MY GOD, I LOVE THIS GUY!"
He was laughing so hard he had to put the controller down for a moment. "There's literally nobody there! Who are you posing for!?"
Dante, naturally, remained completely unbothered.
Tatsuya picked the controller back up and immediately checked his equipment.
The new weapon was available.
Cerberus.
He equipped it.
The moves were completely different from Rebellion.
Tatsuya's grin slowly returned.
"Oh no…"
He looked toward the screen.
"You're giving me more combos already?"
He immediately started experimenting again.
Rebellion offered heavier sword attacks and launchers. Cerberus was faster, more rhythmic, and produced icy effects with each strike. Combined with the four Styles, Ebony and Ivory, and the Shotgun, Tatsuya suddenly realized his combat options were expanding far faster than he had expected.
And he was still near the beginning of the game.
He stared at the equipment screen for a moment.
Then laughed quietly.
"Heheheh… I'm going to waste so much time learning this."
For once, that did not sound like a complaint.
Tatsuya continued playing, already experimenting with switching between Rebellion and Cerberus during fights, trying to understand how different attacks linked together and which Style worked best with each weapon. Every new encounter became less about simply surviving and more about seeing what stupidly stylish combination he could perform before the enemies died.
And one thing had already become completely certain.
He loved Devil May Cry.
The graphics had impressed him immediately, the ZEPS 4 controller made every attack feel satisfying, the combat system was far deeper than he had expected, and Dante had become one of his favorite game protagonists within barely the first few missions.
More importantly, though, Tatsuya realized something while sitting in front of his new console, surrounded by eleven unopened launch games waiting beside him.
This was only the first one.
His ZEPS 4 journey had barely begun.
And if the first game was already this damn good…
Tatsuya glanced toward the stack of unopened Blue-Ray cases beside the television and grinned.
"Heheheh… I'm gonna need more than one week off."
To be continued.
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