I'll say to start, just to ease the minds of any DMC4 fans, I think it's a good game. But they could've paid more attention to what they were shoving into the story. If you've never played DMC4 but are reading this anyway, it'll be very confusing.

Case in point: The Order. The entire storyline revolves around these guys and hardly any of it makes any sense. Why did Agnus -- or any of the Order -- reveal themselves to Nero? Why did they start attacking him? If they hadn't interfered, they could have fooled Nero into thinking they were still on his side. The same goes for when Kyrie was kidnapped.

That's a minor plothole compared to the rest of the Order though; close to the end of the game it's mentioned that the Yamato sword can open and close the door to the demon realm (or something like that). Given that the Order is so anti-demon (more on that later), when I heard this I obviously thought, "oh, so they're going to close the gate permanently, possibly to give themselves unrivalled control of the world?" Turns out no, they're opening it to let the demons flood out into the world. What!?

When Agnus opened the gate to the demon realm, he took Yamato to a place underneath the Order's temple/cathedral and jammed it into the ground. It's never mentioned what this place is or how it's oh-so conveniently underneath the Order's place of worship. It isn't mentioned how the Order know what this place is either or what it does (let's face it, we didn't see any instructions carved into the walls).

Now fair enough, this is one that actually ended up making sense; the Order opened the door to the demon realm so they could kill all the demons themselves, thereby getting recognition from all the civilians that see the amazing feat. The problem is, DMC3's The Lady made a cameo shortly after the player switches to Dante and she said something along the lines of "the Order is known only to its members", something that the game's manual confirmed. So what's the point in that if they're just going to reveal themselves to the world anyway?

And while they're saving all these people, Sanctus, the bad guy, says "Repent". Fair enough, you might think, but since when has the Order had the concept of repentance? Supposedly, Sparda is their God, so why ask people to repent?

Sparda being the Order's God is a plothole in itself. The Order take an anti-demon stance because he did the same. And yet Sparda was a demon. Was this just glossed over or was it something that was explained but I wasn't paying attention?

Because then we come to Nero. Someone with a demon arm but he was still allowed into the Order. At the beginning of the game, Nero kept his arm in a sling, presumably to hide the fact but it still makes no sense; don't the Order do a medical? Or a background check? I know they're not exactly too modern but you'd think they'd notice if one of their members -- the only one who doesn't wear white, therefore sticking out like a sore thumb -- was part-demon. And why was Nero even in the Order anyway? I think it's implied that he joined because of Kyrie but it's more than a little clear that he's not the best . . . Orderist, or whatever the term is for someone of the religion. Which leads to a less intriguing plot; Nero didn't feel any big sense of betrayal because he wasn't that involved to begin with. That would've made for a better storyline, made it a revenge piece and given the payoff much more gravitas. But no, once again the pretty boy hero is portrayed as flawless and infallible, as with all annoying young Japanese videogame characters (see every Final Fantasy hero ever).

Also, I might've missed the answer to this but was it ever settled as to why Nero and Dante look so much alike? I seem to recall some mention that Nero was another descendant of Sparda but I might be wrong. By that point in the game, I had completely switched off. Even though my body was still watching the cut-scenes, my mind was at the peep show a few streets away.

Oh yeah, and I just found this on Wikipedia:

"Upon the release of the original Devil May Cry, Dante's personality received positive reviews, IGN described the character as a "maverick head-hunter" as well as a "believable" character"

I've never laughed and cringed so much at a single statement in my life. I understand the kind of fanboys who love to portray every garbage, anime-inspired Japanese game smelling of roses but Dante, aside from FF7's Cloud and MGS' Raiden, is the single worst videogame character in existence. Yeah, it's really believable when a character says "flock off, feather face", like Dante did in DMC1. It's so believable when a character does a half-baked flamenco dance when getting a new weapon, as he does in DMC4.

Oh yeah, and this one too:

"The designs used for characters in Devil May Cry 4 were described as resembling a "legion of seraphim the likes of which gamers have never seen before, and it puts an interesting spin on what all of our preconceptions of 'good' are in a video game"

I can't tell if this one is a joke or not. If any game puts a spin on a gamer's preconceptions of "good", it isn't Devil May Cry 4. Even without the plotholes, I've never seen such a clichéd and tired storyline in my life. It was practically lifted from Resident Evil 4, only Leon wasn't a member and they had the good grace to refer to Los Illuminados as being a cult. Not to mention the characters. They were all stereotypes. In fact they were stereotypes of stereotypes. The stuttering and laughing villains, rolled into one character (Agnus). The moody young hero (Nero, or if you gave him black hair you might as well call him Squall). Still, at least they don't go to the depths of sticking someone like DMC3's Jester in the game.

There is practically nothing about Devil May Cry 4 that will provoke any deep debate over good and evil. Leave that to a game like Bioshock, Max Payne, Half-Life or even Heavenly Sword. DMC is ridiculously immature and, for the moment, all the better for it.

As a footnote, I messed around with Photoshop a bit more and came up with this. My modern interpretation of Turrican.