Dante/Vergil werent made to look bad because of Nero. They looked bad because DMC5's story fell apart about halfway through.

Dante was a protagonist in 5. His part of the game was all about wrapping up his story and filling in the blanks of his past.

I dont want them to take a dump on the older characters, which is why inwant them to be retired. Like you said, they dont have anymore ideas for them, which is why they need to be put away. Not having Nero as the main character will only exacerbate the problem. I get that you dont like Nero but he isnt ruining the old characters. Its Capcom trying to force stories out of them when they dont have anymore for them

I don't dislike Nero as a character, I dislike what he represents, which is Capcom's laziness and lack of creativity. I'm not sure what sense does it make to say they want to retire Dante because they don't know what to do with him just to turn around and end up doing similar stories with someone else instead. I would think Dante deserves better than that. I wouldn't mind even if they were to kill him off, but let him go out on his own without trying to push someone else at his expense by making him a secondary character in his own franchise that many fans simply won't accept. I don't see people across the board being mad if there was another Dante game with no Nero, nobody had a problem with Dante after DMC3, nobody thought he was getting stale or that there were no more stories left to tell with him, that was the narrative that Capcom started pushing since that's been their agenda since DMC4. It's like you're trying to get me to understand Capcom's decisions when they are the ones being disrespectful towards their characters, not me.

If they retire him they need a new protagonist. Dante hasnt had a "save the girlfriend story" nor has he had the "i am your father/regain my lost pride" story.

I hope they stick with their decision to retire him.

In Itsuno's own words, he and the staff had Dante fatigue and if them making a Dante-only game means having 20 missions worth of what we got from Dante's DMC5 story then no thanks. I dont get how you think Nero ruins Dante by proximity. He worked fine as a mentor type character in 4. When made one of the main protagonist in 5 his story/character got kind messed up, and like i said before, taking Nero out of DMC5 doesnt fix the problems Capcom had with Dante

DMC4 and 5 are generally stories about "the kid with powers that needs to grow up and accept his legacy". I didn't say there were completely identical to DMC3, but it's been there, done that. Dante's story in DMC5 only got bad in the end when his and Vergil's rivalry of different ideologies was retconned as some one-dimensional brotherly fight fest that was all done for Nero's sake, which we talked about already.

Capcom's "Dante fatigue" is on them, not on the character. How can Kratos still be the main character of God of War after he killed the entire Greek god pantheon, but Dante can't get another game just because he defeated the demon king 5 games ago. There are so many other ways to present different challenges for him where his power levels would be of no relevance and he could further develop as a character.

For instance what if demons got a little smarter and decided that if they can't hurt Dante physically, they can try to hurt him emotionally instead. After all demons are supposed to torment people, not only serve as monsters, so maybe they could come up with something to trick Dante or lie to him in some way that his father's legacy isn't what he thought it was, or just do anything to make him doubt his mission in general. Demons know Dante loves his family so they could find a way to try to use that against him that goes beyond Mundus just creating a copy of his mother or brainwashing his brother and sending him after him. Or maybe they could have another prequel-type game that actually shows us more about Dante and Vergil's relationship when they were younger, or how did they actually grew apart beyond just the death of their mother. From what we know they were closer in their early days, so maybe they could show Dante at some point actually tried to talk Vergil out of his quest for power instead of just fighting him on principle as DMC5 suggested only so Nero could have his forced big moment in the end. There's no reason to believe that more stories can't be done with Dante. If someone like me can come up with more story ideas for him, how come they can't? It only boils down to lack of imagination on Capcom's part and in my view they've done nothing but mistreat the character for so long now.

Nero's DMC4 story was about a young with powers protecting his lover. Nero's DMC5 story about a man regaining his lost pride. In neither game did he "grow up" or accept the responsibility left by his elders.

Dante's story got bad because Vergil had weak motivation. You blame Nero for that but Vergil's motivation/goals didnt change because of Nero. In fact, Nero had 0 effect on either of the twins motivations

It is on them, but that just means that whatever they end of giving us with him is narratively subpar.

Kratos' first game didnt have him defeat the strongest GOWverse character by the end. In fact, it took 2 games for Kratos to do that. Kratos didnt solve 90% of his emotional baggage at the end of his 1st game

Dante defeated a demon king in in DMC1 and DMC2 and DMC5.

His faint memories, words of his mother, and Sparda's greatest enemies and closest allies all describe him as dude who fought for the sake of humans at the cost of his home and own species. Who is left to offer any more insight that what kind of asspull could be offered to legitimize what that character says. It would look like BS a mile away and if there is any truth behind it it would look like a BS retcon.

Dante is strong enough in his own convictions and has seen the best/worst humanity has to offer. Same with Hell.

What left is there? How do you go beyond murdering his mother and then using her likeness to murder him? Or torturing/brainwashing/enslaving his twin and making then make them fight to the (seeming) death?

DMC3 manga pretty much did this. Dante/Vergil thought eachother dead until they met there.

He also tried that at the end of 3 and Vergil didnt care.

... Dante fought Vergil because he needed Yamato to shut down the Qliphoth portal and stop hell from rising on Earth.

Vergil fought Dante because "i have to fight my brother because that is the status quo and i have nothing else to do."

As ive pointed out above, all those ideas require some huge retcons or retreads old territory for Dante. The former muddies up the lore and the latter will make the narrative stale.

In the premise of the first GOW game, Kratos killed the character who had done him wrong the most. It's not about whether Ares wasn't as powerful as Zeus, it's about Kratos defeating his arch enemy in the very first game the same way Dante defeated his arch enemy in his first game. The game is literally called "god of war" and Kratos killed the god of war at the end, who was also the same character who tricked him into killing his family, took his brother away and make him his own weapon of destruction. Besides, there was no reason to think at that point that Zeus was a malevolent character, let alone Kratos' father, they did that afterwards to continue Kratos' story. That's what you do to serve your main character, you find a way to make more stories for him. There's no reason why Dante couldn't get the same treatment for more games.

They don't need to use the specific ideas I mentioned, I'm pointing out basic premise of doing something else and Sparda's character is still very much a mystery. Dante barely even remembers him. He honors him because of what he's been told about him, not because he actually recalls what kind of individual he was. The lore treats him as a legend and legends aren't always necessarily what they're described to be, or at least that could be the kind of narrative demons can try to use against Dante. Creating personal conflict for him, because the figure he spent his entire life looking up to may or may not turn out to be who he always thought he was, isn't something we've seen before. I barely remember my father too and other than what my mother and other family members have told me about him, I don't know much about him as a person either. There will always be a certain mysterious aspect of a deceased family member that you never really got to know well and Sparda certainly falls into that category. Strong writing isn't exactly what this franchise is known for and they don't really need to retcon anything. Dante says it himself in DMC5 that he doesn't use his brain a lot, so who's to say he can't fall for some demon plot that wants to paint his father in a bad light to make him second-guess what he's doing and use it against him afterwards. Or discover that something else happened to Sparda after his "disappearance". Why hasn't Dante ever tried to find out what really happened to his father after he never came back anyway. Nonetheless, those are just random examples that if you want to create more stories for him, you can.

I still don't understand how any of what you pointed out shows the character has no stories left in him. There is no such thing as a fictional character reaching their full story potential unless the TPTB find it narratively convenient to try to make it seem so.

Dante already did this

You are comparing apples to oranges. Dante doesnt have the same options as Kratos. Dante isnt outranked or outpowered by anyone. All of Dante's family is dead. The only person who could feasibly screw Dante over is Vergil, and then we would have the 4th Dante vs Vergil story.

Dante spent all of DMC3 disowning his father and demonic heritage. He fought demons when he didnt like his father and he will probably fight them if he finds a reason to not like him again.

Its not just Eva and legends that have described Sparda. His students and Matier have made it clear Sparda was nothing but a good dude. Mundus and Beowulf, who are 2 characters who hated Sparda the most, didnt pull "hey Dante your dad was actually a huge piece of shit" card. Mundus even said he had the same light in his eyes as Dante. If Sparda's biggest enemy paints him as an altruistic guy similar to Dante then there is little, if anything, that anyone can say to convince Dante or the audience otherwise

The series isnt known for strong writing. Retcons and/or inconsitancies would make it worse. Recall Vergil's motivation went from "get more power at all costs" to "must beat Dante at all costs"

Thats not what Dante said. He said it had been a while since he used his brain that much. It doesnt mean he is stupid or doesnt think. Looking at the anime, 90% of Dante's missions have him just show up, kill demons, and leave

Sparda is dead. DMC1 said so.

There most definitely is such a thing. There is only so much that can be done past a characters initial arc before their stories become repetative, episodic, or both. GOW kinda got around this by pulling a 180 on Kratos' character and shifting focus away from him as the the sole main character, but he is still fighting a set of mythical gods so there is a degree of retread in the new story. Not to mention all the inconsistancies created by this new set of gods

Right, that's why Batman has been around for 80 years and he's still as relevant as ever. I don't intend to keep going back and forth with this, so please don't take it the wrong way that I don't respond to every point you made. My overall point wasn't to directly compare Dante's story to another character's story(Kratos) or make specific suggestions like bringing Sparda back in some way or retcon the story, I gave general throwaway ideas that if you want to continue Dante's story you can always do it without worrying about whether someone could think it's forced or makes no sense or it's retreading old grounds(following continuity, other than some references here and there, hardly seems to be a big priority for the developers at this point). Capcom doesn't do it because they clearly don't think much of Dante anymore and that is sad to see as a fan from the start.

Again, apples and oranges. What works for character A doesnt work for character B. Look at Dragonball Super. Its become the Goku and Vegeta show and to do that Goten and Trunks look younger than their Z selves when they should be nearly twice that age. They make that it seem like Gohan is going to train and become a fighter again but he stays in his books and work meetings. Piccolo is weak and dumb and everyone who isnt Goku/Vegeta is basically fodder.

Either Dante gets the comicbook treatment with an alternate universe counterpart and reboots every 10 or so years we keep the original Dante and he becomes Goku and everyone else becomes irrelevent.

The devs do care about continuity. DMC5, BTN and VOV are all about establishing what is part of the continuity. The stuff they DIDNT keep in continuity was what messed up the story in the end. The devs do clearly care about Dante, that is why he was in character all of 5 and was made the strongest in the DMCverse. The notion that they hate Dante or something because they want to retire him is bizarre.

Fair enough. I just wish Dante would've gotten a better sendoff if DMC5 was truly meant to be a sendoff story for him. I think the character deserved better than being written off by trapping himself in the underworld to go cut some evil tree with his brother. Seems incredibly anticlimactic to write him off like that. I honestly wouldn't mind if he got some crazy dramatic death scene while saving the world from another big bad again. Either way, nice talking to you.