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I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with liiiiiiiiiiight! |
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Bob Barbas is a reporter and owner of media corporation Raptor News Network and is the undisputed “King of Media”.[1] He is one of the demons holding power over Limbo City.
Appearance
In his human form, Bob looks like a slightly overweight, middle-aged man with a bad comb-over. He wears a crisp, dark suit. As a demon, he appears as a large, digitized head made of moving and constantly reassembling pixels barely hiding a firey-orange face.
Personality
Bob portrays himself as a man faithful to God, often using the catchphrase "just doin' God's work", but unbeknownst to his viewers, his God is actually the Demon king Mundus. He uses the Raptor News Network to feed the populace with propaganda and keep them suspicious of various causes that could make them less docile, in particular The Order. In his work to villainize Dante and the Order, he not only labels them as terrorists and blames them for the acts of destruction caused by the demons, but also feeds upon moral guardian by painting Dante as a sexual deviant who willfully spreads diseases. After Vergil and Kat reveal to Dante that Bob is actually a cruel demon warden, and his tower, a prison, Dante quotes "So he's more than just a f***ing d***."
Bob never passes an opportunity to vulgarly insult those who fight against Mundus' rule, telling the viewers that they must be eliminated at all costs. In his first appearance in the game, he literally suggests "illegally" shooting the leader of the Order. When Dante approaches the true form of the Raptor News Tower, he finally understands why his point-of-view was "so upside down."
Story
The Chronicles of Vergil
Bob Barbas is an overseer of the Hellfire Prison Control Room, where he presides control over Hellfire and the human media, manipulating global human consciousness. He's all seeing, as with his connection to Hellfire, Barbas can see everything that the media is also connected to. During the events of The Chronicles of Vergil it's implied that the existance of Sparda and Eva's Nephilim children is known to the demons, but not who or where these children are. When Vergil and Kat finally make it into the Hellfire control room in their search for Dante, Kat's astral form temporarily merges with the 'brains' of Hellfire, and she is able to pinpoint Dante amongst the sea of information contained within Hellfire, and shows Vergil the exact moment where Dante's demonic powers awaken from the discovered footage within Hellfire. Bob Barbas, still also connected to Hellfire, is able to hear the conversations Kat and Vergil are having during this discovery, and thanks them for their assistance, as they have now given the demons a lead onto who and where the nephilim heir of Sparda is, and that Dante is in fact the 'Son of Sparda'.[2] Barbas makes one last appearance near the end of the comic, where he is seen warning the public about the dangers of a new terrorist Dante, shifting the blame of recent tragic events to the Son of Sparda.[3]
DmC: Devil May Cry
The first glimpses of Bob are of his newscasts, where he often uses his show on Raptor as a soapbox to talk about his own personal beliefs, and usually to spread propaganda to the public, controlling the overall opinion Limbo City has on people like Dante and groups like The Order.
However, Vergil reveals to Dante that Bob and the Raptor News Network are working for Mundus. They help keep his superiority over humans by keeping them monitored with their cameras, not just in Limbo City, but everywhere else in the world.
Later on in the story, Dante targets Bob, as killing him will hinder Mundus' control on humans. He makes his way through an upside-down section of the city in order to reach the Raptor News Tower. In this upside-down area of Limbo, Bob tortures humans, demons and nephilim who do not follow Mundus' orders in his own personal prison.
Once Dante arrives at the tower, he encounters Bob's demonic form. During the battle, Dante "goes inside" Bob and fight his way through hordes of demons that attack him while Bob reports the incident as "violent, shocking footage" of Dante murdering innocent people, commenting on his background and making Dante seem like nothing but a violent terrorist, who spreads sexual diseases.
During the battle, Bob reports that The Order is being raided by SWAT teams, who are targeting Vergil and Kat. This only angers Dante, while Bob taunts him that they cannot hope to defeat Mundus. At the end of the battle, Dante shoots Bob Barbas' human form, killing him, and acquiring the Aquila.
Powers and abilities
Bob is able to control Limbo to some extent, bending reality to his desires and creating hindrances to stop Dante. Among his abilities is a powerful beam of energy emitted from his tower's core that is able to disintegrate large spaces of matter and deal considerable damage to Dante as he ventures closer to Bob's lair.
Bob Barbas's true form is confronted at the virtual core of his tower. During his boss battle, he alters reality freely, attacking Dante with electrical discharges and pixel holograms. When deprived of health, Bob can transport Dante into fake virtual broadcasts depicting him "slaughtering innocent civilians", which, in fact, are Bob's demon minions. The only way to materialize Bob and deal damage to him is to hijack his power supply channels by attacking with Eryx, which leave him temporarily vulnerable to Dante's attacks.
Strategy
Bob Barbas becomes a giant talking head for his boss fight, and transports the player to a live news broadcast covering the "terrorist" known as Dante between phases of the fight.
Bob Barbas is invincible to all attacks until he's been stunned, and will attack and taunt the player until the player stuns him. Stomping the red buttons he lights up triggers a very long stun where the player can damage him properly.
Despite 3 red lights appearing each phase to cause this stun, each phase actually requires a different amount of lights to be hit before stunning Barbas—1 light for the first phase, 2 for the second, and 3 for the third.
Parrying any of Bob Barbas' projectile attacks can also stun him, but only very briefly, giving the player just enough time to reach the next red button completely unchallenged.
After dealing enough damage to to clear one of Barbas' health bars, his eye will glow, allowing the player to Angel Lift to it to enter the live black-and-white news broadcast intermediary phase of the fight. Inside the news broadcast, Dante encounters an infinite wave of enemies until the dialogue ends and Dante returns back to Bob Barbas, beginning the next phase of the fight.
Activating Devil Trigger during this fight will force Barbas and his projectiles to slow down, which can make evading and parrying them much easier, and also lengthens the vulnerability period where Barbas' head turns blue.
Definitive Edition
Bob Barbas' attacks are no longer parryable, and Stomping a button no longer interrupts his attacks or stuns him (except for the last button in a sequence).
The button logic has also been reworked: Bob only lights up buttons that need to be Stomped to progress to the next stage of the fight, and doesn't light up extra buttons. If the player waits too long, Barbas will taunt, and re-light the buttons, even if the player hasn't Stomped them all yet.
Barbas also no longer randomly taunts between attacks, and the energy wall attack has been changed to be more predictable.
Appearances in Other Media
Bob Barbas
TEPPEN
- Bob Barbas was added as a card for the DmC: Devil May Cry themed expansion, Metal Suit Mafia.
Background
The Demon Marbas, also known as Barbas, is one of the seventy two demons of the Ars Goetia and is the Great President of Hell. Marbas appears first as a lion but is able to change into a man. He promotes wisdom of the Mechanical Arts, and answers truthfully about hidden or secret information. Marbas can cause and cure diseases, and can also change men into different shapes.[4][5]
Barbas' demonic form is a giant talking head, which ironically newscasters are often called with derogatory connotations. It also bears resemblance to the MCP, the main antagonist from the 1982 film, Tron.
The Raptor News Network and Bob Barbas are parodies of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, respectively. During the battle against Bob, he even screams Bill O'Reilly's notorious "we'll do it live!".