Dante will use voice clips from the first game, and certain battles against enemies will trigger the DMC1 Battle Themes "Pubic Enemy" and "Lock and Load", rather than his standard battle themes. Attacks with the sword generate the slashing sound effects from the first game, and shooting with the handguns will generate the sound effects from the first game as well. Along with the costume changing Dante's appearance, certain aspects of the game's audio are changed as well. Rebellion's in-game model is replaced with Force Edge, the latter's level corresponding to the former's. As a result, the costume does not appear during cutscenes, due to his DMC1 face model lacking facial animations. Dante's entire character model is replaced with that of Dante's model from the first game.
Sparda casts the shadow of his demon form rather than his human form, and changes into his own demonic form when using Devil Trigger, though his moveset still depends on his equipped Devil Arm. Unlike Dante, Sparda begins with a functional Devil Arm, Yamato (mechanically, a clone of Alastor which turns into the sword Sparda during Devil Trigger) in addition to Force Edge, and he also uses Luce & Ombra instead of Ebony & Ivory.