Now that Devil May Cry fans have had time to let the new look of protagonist Dante sink in, Capcom claims they are beginning to come to terms with his big changes. Aside from a new, more punk-influenced look, Capcom has remained stalwart in their claims that DmC's Dante is just as much the wisecracking bounty hunter as in past iterations. Capcom's US Producer Alex Jones even feels like fans are beginning to understand what new developer Ninja Theory is trying to do.

Having had several opportunities to play the game, or to see it in action via some extended gameplay trailers, fans are, at the very least, seeing what Ninja Theory brings to the table. Granted, white-haired Dante is only present via the game's devil trigger mode, but Capcom believes his personality has been preserved in this prequel.

There are dozens of nods to the game's past iterations, but the new look seems to be a major point of contention for fans, and prevents them from truly seeing how closely DmC resembles the originals. Jones even talks about some of those similarities in an interview with VG 24/7 saying the post-level grading and the brash foul-mouthed dialogue are still there. Still, until the game releases he's going to be asked about Dante's new look, but at least he feels things are changing.

"It was really just the look that fans were struggling with, or at least that's what Capcom believes, and they think over the past month they've really turned a corner. There was always going to be people who saw new Dante and who didn’t want it, and that’s fine. We understand — I understand — that people are passionate about it, so this isn’t a bad thing. Being angry about it — yeah I get that — but we always said, ‘when you see the game and you play it, trust me, you’re going to understand that we were doing the right thing’. Now that’s happening, so yeah it’s vindication, but it’s not like smugly sitting back and going ‘ha ha’. It’s more like, ‘We understand why you guys had doubts, and we knew that we had to prove this to you, and we were happy to do it.’ That was our responsibility."

The response to our preview of DmC at Comic-Con suggested that fans are still struggling with the new look, but if Jones believes the group, en masse has been able to accept it, then perhaps they have. There's also been quite a heated debate about the nature of Dante's combat as compared to what was seen in past Devil May Cry games — especially the presence of the aforementioned devil and angel triggers — but Jones does not discuss that.

He does reveal that, in terms of difficulty, DmC can be closely likened to Devil May Cry 3's special edition in that it finds a nice balance at the normal setting, but can get really challenging if players like. Hands-on time with game provided its fair share of challenging obstacles, but nothing frustrating enough to evaluate Jones' claim.

With the game having now been given a firm release date (early next year) fans will finally be able to put to rest the debate over whether this is authentic Dante or not, but we suspect they've already made up their minds. It might play like Devil May Cry, but its protagonist is proving to be a real barrier to entry.

What do you think: has Dante's new look started to grow on you? What other elements of the game do you feel aren't true to the Devil May Cry series?

DmC: Devil May Cry releases January 15, 2013 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Source: VG 24/7