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This article is about the recurring Devil May Cry boss. You may be looking for the firearms Nightmare-β and Nightmare-γ or the familiar from Devil May Cry 5.

Nightmare is a bio-weapon that serves its creator, Mundus. It is the boss of Mission 16: Nightmare of Darkness, Mission 18: Spirit Stone, "Elixir" and Mission 20: Showdown with Nightmare in Devil May Cry. There are two weapons fashioned after it: Nightmare-β, which appears in Devil May Cry; and Nightmare-γ in Devil May Cry 2.

Appearance and Description[]

Nightmare in its most basic form is a bizarre pool of tepid green slime in which plates of demonic material and a number of skulls are partially submerged. When forced to enter its combat mode, it forms its plating into a grey slug-like hull covered in demonic runes, with several structures resembling exhaust pipes rising up at its sides. In this form Nightmare is effectively a living tank.

File[]

It's a bio weapon created by the Dark Emperor. Its properties consist of inorganic substances. Like a machine, it obeys the commands of the Dark Emperor. Whether it has a consciousness, is unknown.
—Encounter enemy
Nightmare-Beta is a similar weapon to the Nightmare. Hence, the weapon has no effects against it.
—Fire Nightmare-β at one of Nightmare's cores
The embossed circles on the floor are restraining tools used to restrain the Nightmare from overriding. Once the Nightmare is restrained, it will encase itself in a hard armor. But it will show its core from time to time almost as if it's breathing. To damage the Nightmare, it will have to be in this form.
—Activate one of the devices on the walls
When you are surrounded in its gel like form, you will be teleported into an evil dimension. You must destroy the evil spirits that rule the dimension. The evil is a reflection of Dante's trauma rests in his subconscious.
—Allow Dante to be engulfed by Nightmare
The round attachments on its body act like a machinegun and fires small energy forces. The damage of each hit is small but when hit repetitively it can do substantial damage.
—Allow Nightmare to deploy its machine gun orbs
It can detach a part of its body and project it in the air like a boomerang. The spinning blade only travels in a routine trajectory so watch carefully to its movement and find an opening to attack!
—Allow Nightmare to use its boomerang attack. Second and third battles only
Avoid getting close to it's sides whenever possible. Its defensive reflexes will activate and a spear-like object will thrust out to eliminate whatever is in the way. If you time your attack with sufficient impact, you'll be able to create a chance for your offense.
—Allow Nightmare to use its spear attack
The white light that's released from the core travels along the ground then pans sideways. Dodging to the sides could be a dangerous move.
—See the blaze of light when Nightmare reveals one of its cores
The black gel-like things that it releases will wreathe themselves to the prey and freeze them. Wiggle the Left Analog Stick to shake them off.
—Allow Nightmare to spawn its minion creatures while it is in liquid form
The homing projectiles can be shot back with your guns. Once the missiles lose their target, they will return to the Nightmare's core and damaging it.
—Use Dante's guns or an AoE attack to reflect Nightmare's missiles back at its rear core
When it changes to its net-like formation, slash away at the stems and escape quickly. Critical damage is the fate that awaits if you fail to escape.
—Allow Nightmare to perform this move. Third battle only
The Nightmare releases its most lethal attack from the hatches on the ends. The intense coldness is the gathered cries of the dead it'll freeze even magma. When the hatches start to open, do your best to avoid being hit.
—Allow Nightmare to use its beam attack
The Nightmare possesses several cores. Each time a core is destroyed, its self defense mechanism activates and its attack formation will change. Watch closely for the attack formation changes.
—Allow Nightmare to reveal one of its cores
The core has the power to absorb magical powers and it does not exclude Dante's powers. If it starts to absorb, damage the core to stop the absorption. When it absorbs enough magical powers, it will activate its own Devil Trigger and start attacking with tremendous force.
—Allow Nightmare to absorb Devil Trigger power from Dante

Story[]

Dante first encounters the Nightmare when it enters the castle's chapel, but he forces it to retreat. It later appears while Dante performs the ritual to transform the Philosopher's Egg into the Elixir, and is again forced to retreat. After Dante enters the Underworld, he is lured into the Nightmare's den by Trish, who is pretending to be injured. However, Nightmare attacks as soon as Dante enters the room, and while fighting it, Dante is also attacked by Trish. Dante manages to finally destroy Nightmare, and coldly leaves Trish in the room while he goes on to fight Mundus.

Strategy[]

Main articles: Mission 16, Mission 18, and Mission 20

Nightmare is invulnerable to all attacks that are not directed at one of its two cores. To expose the cores, a rune-wheel must be activated to trigger the restraint devices on the floor. All wheels in Nightmare's arena are activated together: there are four in the first battle, two in the second, and one in the third. Activating them turns Nightmare from a puddle into a solid state, and it will expose its core at certain stages of its attack cycle.

When in its fluid form, Nightmare can envelop Dante whole, transporting him into its insides where he must do battle with Sargassos followed by one of the other bosses of the game, Phantom, Griffon, or Nelo Angelo, in order to escape. Succeeding will deal significant damage to Nightmare and make the restraints stay active for longer afterwards. Once Dante has entered and escaped the "evil dimension" once, he cannot be enveloped again: the attack will simply deal damage if he is caught in it afterwards. Nightmare also gains the ability to use the envelop attack even when in solid form if Dante has already been caught by it.

While in its fluid state, Ifrit's Rolling Blaze will not deal damage but still counts as scoring hits, allowing Dante to quickly build up Devil Trigger with little risk to himself.

Note that Nightmare's cores are persistent during the three encounters for it, and the cores have three possible states (blue, green and red), with Nightmare's attacks becoming more aggressive and its cores gaining more damage resistance as previous cores are destroyed and their colors change. While on lower difficulties, this isn't much of a concern, on higher difficulties (particularly Dante Must Die!) it can be prudent to try to try and beat the first two Nightmare fights while destroying the cores as few times as possible, as fighting Nightmare 3 with both its cores in the red state makes the fight exceptionally harder.

Cores are destroyed based on the number of hits they have received, rather than the amount of damage, so using Ifrit's charged punch-punch-kick-kick combo while DT'd is the best way to damage Nightmare's total health bar while delivering as few hits to its cores as possible. Also, entering Nightmare in its fluid form (and defeating the boss inside) will not only damage its healthbar without damaging its cores, it will also reset the counter for the number of hits each core has taken.

Powers and Abilities[]

Nightmare is effectively a living tank, armed with a variety of beam and projectile weapons and coated in a layer of thick plating.

In its basic form Nightmare is not particularly combat effective, but is impervious to any attack. While in this state it will form bizarre creatures which lunge at anything that approaches and freeze it in place, and extend its fluid form in an attempt to drag the hapless target inside itself. Once trapped, it forces its victims to face horrors drawn from their own memories. Not content with trapping enemies in this world, if it finds itself in a suitable space Nightmare can form its fluid form into a net-like structure, then drop on anything unfortunate enough to be below it.

When an attempt is made to restrain it via magical wards, Nightmare will shift into its combat mode, forming a thick armored hull with a distinct "head" at one end. Hatches in this plated hull allow it to deploy numerous weapons, including homing missiles, tentacle-like spikes, machine guns orbs and a mighty beam made from the collected screams of the dead which freezes its victims on contact.

Nightmare's power is drawn from two orbs covered in demonic runes, which Nightmare must expose from time to time as part of its demonic metabolism. As these take damage, Nightmare will reinforce their defenses accordingly.

Nightmare does not appear to be capable of thought: its actions follow a strict program based on the behavior of its target and its own actions, which it will never deviate from.

Other Appearances[]

Devil May Cry 5[]

Main article: Nightmare (Familiar)

Nightmare is one of V's familiars. It is physical a manifestation of Vergil's lingering emotions and thoughts from his period as Nelo Angelo.

Devil May Cry 5: Visions of V[]

The original Nightmare appears in the manga in the form of flashbacks, with its's origins being explained by Griffon.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Nightmare's fluid form seems based on the the Cthulhu Mythos creature Abhoth, a mass of grey fluid which constantly spawns bizarre creatures.
  • Nightmare's cores are persistent during the three encounters for it, and the cores have three possible states, with the state changes depending on how the cores are attacked.
  • Nightmare's mechanical nature is reflected in it having the most strictly scripted attack pattern of any boss in the game.
  • Nico noted that the Order of the Sword had no record of Nightmare, implying that Mundus had probably created it recently and specifically to defeat Dante.
  • According to Devil May Cry 5: Visions of V chapter 8, Nightmare had the power to destroy the Underworld and Mundus sealed its power. This is actually from Devil May Cry Kaitai Shinsho guide book, which is emphasized again in the manga.
  • Devil May Cry Graphic Edition comment suggests that, being an “α (Alpha)” to Nightmare-β, Nightmare perhaps can be used by Mundus being put on his arm.
  • According to artist Yoshinori Matsushita's comment in Devil May Cry: 3142 Graphic Arts, Nightmare was originally conceived as a liquid monster that cultivating ancient virus in Resident Evil 4, It has a hard shell and fires missiles to attack.

See also[]

References[]

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