Devil May Cry anime star recalls playing the game for the first time, as he explains what makes it so special: "There's definitely a unique thing to it"

Johnny Yong Bosch, the voice behind gun-toting demon hunter Dante in Netflix's Devil May Cry adaptation, has recalled the time he first played the action horror video game – and it seems like it made quite the lasting impression.

"I played DMC 1, and, just the world itself, the darkness of that world – it had something that really spoke to me in a unique way," he tells GamesRadar+, when we ask why he thinks the source material is so popular. "Even right now, as I'm talking about it, I can hear the orbs, and I can hear certain sound effects, so there's definitely a unique thing to it.

"Honestly [though], I picked up a lot more [of the story] when I read the novels, because I got a lot more out of who Dante is in there. Maybe because I didn't see it, you know, and I was visualizing it differently in my head. It's very rich."

Created by Hideki Kamiya, the first Devil May Cry game was released back in 2001. Since then, it's been widely reported that Kamiya had originally set out to make a Resident Evil game but when that didn't pan out, Devil May Cry was born – tweaking and repackaging what he'd intended to be Resident Evil 4. Ten franchise titles have been released over the last 24 years, as well as several light novels and manga series, and its first animated adaptation launched in 2007.

Available on multiple platforms, they see players have to fight off supernatural threats while avoiding damage. Their performance is then graded on how many successful attacks they carry out, as well as speed, numbers of items collected and used, and how much they are able to vary their combat styles.

Bosch, who previous works include Bleach, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, and Solo Leveling, voiced Dante's nephew Nero in Devil May Cry 4 and 5.

Devil May Cry premieres on April 3. For more, check out our picks of the best Netflix shows or our round-up of the best anime titles you need to be watching.