Alright, with one campaign done, figured I'll give my full thoughts on Lady and Trish, what I enjoyed a lot about them and what I think could be added moving forward in the series.
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Lady is definitely a good start for a character based entirely around guns, which I've stated before I've always wanted since the gunslinger style was introduced in DMC3. Guns are powerful, and building up charge shots while doing other gun attacks to keep enemies juggled is fairly satisfying. Some of her takes on DMC staple abilities like Air Hike and Devil Trigger are neat and show she's very capable of taking on most of the demons everyone has faced despite not being a demon.
My critiques of it though have to do with the weapon selection all being tools Dante has used already, limited mobility, and how certain functions are handled and mapped to specific inputs. Having her SMG or even some other crazy weapons, not necessarily devil arms but a human made weapon that has a lot utility and crazy functions would be welcome. As for mobility, I can see the keep away, plant yourself in place to shoot aspect was a conscious design decision, but she's still capable of more elaborate acrobatics and feats of maneuverability. Having special moves or animations to emphasize this and are unique to her alone would also help, but I imagine at some point the means to make that necessary would involve making some significant changes to how movement in DMC is handled as a whole. As for her actual inputs, some general things I would like to see added/changed/improved.
- Add some manner of just frame mechanic to Lady. I mentioned before that I would have liked to have seen an active reload type system like Max-Act. Something like pressing an input at a specific moment, such as at the end of an attack when she ejects a clip from her pistols, could cut down on recovery animations and allow for a quick follow up attack of sorts. This wouldn't be for the regular firearm weapon but for the special gun attacks with circle
- Limit the wire action to only the Kalina Ann when it's selected. Granted it needed to be accessed at all times given this game's environments and enemies were designed with Nero's Devil Bringer in mind, but for a future game moving it to just the Kalina Ann would free up an extra trick move for each weapon, as well as some specific air borne trick moves.
- Alter the melee attack to be weapon specific and/or replace it entirely with a melee moveset that is designed to push enemies away and not be slow but powerful. Using melee is obviously not the point with Lady, but getting in a full melee combo in this does do an okay amount of damage. But there could be more interesting melee options per weapon that work to put Lady in a more advantageous situation. The damage she takes is fine as is, no real need to change that.
There's tons of different directions and possibilities to take this type of character, and while her tech so far isn't as exciting or deep as everyone else in the roster, the novelty is still strong that I want to see an updated take on it.
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As for Trish, the idea of her not having to switch weapons I like well enough, she's very easy to use and her direction gun inputs show that incorporating Dante's gunslinger moves into his base moveset could work (as could potentially all his other styles into their respective actions). Only thing that comes to mind on how this could be expanded is more tools for setting up lightning based traps. The Inazumas are great for catching enemies that you've hit while airborne, but more emphasis on setting up traps or modifying specific moves to add lightning streaks could lead to amazing setups for combos. Also give her Air Raid for her Devil Trigger, that'd be sweet.
She's still closer to a traditional DMC character than Lady (and was already playable in the past), so there's not much else I could want or come up with, really.
