Devil May Cry 4 Notes

Story

The story cut scenes deserve a mention, fast paced and furious, a strange mix of modern, Nero wears chunky fashion victim headphones in the first scenes, and old world gothic. The architecture is immense, huge spires and bestial demonic statues, puritan's with hoods. I don't know the history of the story

I don't know who dante is, and seeing as this is devil may cry 4 i have a lot of history to catch up on.

Stylish cut scenes, cutting the chandelier and hurtling into the huge portrait of his holiness to open a new way

Cut scene where we see Credo using a tablet bed type thing to resurrect his holiness. Doesn't look particularly holy, more demonic if you ask me.

Introduces a new character who isn't named yet, has a big jaw and looks like credo, could be his ugly stupider brother, he stutters.

Seems ugly credo has a secret lab which he doesn't want Nero to find while he is searching for Dante. Most likely we will be going there next.

Credo and his holiness seemed to be expecting Dante as if it is part of their plan, i am sure it is and it will unfold.

Agnus is the name of the stutterer. He is researching demon powers trying to harness it for his holiness. They want power ho hum. He has succeeded in getting swords and suits of armor possessed by demons to do his bidding. Is all we have seen so far under the control of an invading demon horde or just Credo Agnus and his Holiness's doing. They have made a hellgate to summon demons souls through which they can control. Using a demon arm. Whatever that means. Must be a reference to Nero's arm, or maybe an earlier game, who can tell if you haven't played the earlier games.

After a boss battle against twenty or so whirling flying swords which you hurl at the glass Agnus is hiding behind, he explains all this and then double crosses you and pins you against a wall and sticks a sword through you, someone needs to give these people anatomy lessons, you die if someone stick a big sword through your heart, not just get inconvenienced for a minute.

Behind Agnus is a samurai sword broken in half, it seems that being close to Nero makes the sword whole and it comes to Nero, turning his eyes red and makingthe outline of a demon appear behind him as if it is puppeting or shadowing his moves. His love for Kyrie is what seems to keep him going, well maybe just shouting her name anyway. Seems to be a lot of that.

Anyway once the sword is used Agnus is turned into an insect ???? what the fuck! Nero lets him go, why? he had him where he couldn't really get away, but he opens an escape route for him anyway.

back we go now we have opened the falls, lot of backtracking here

oh dear the bridge has closed behind us looks like the only way is forward

another wtf moment, we go through a tunnel and into another world it seems, well at least what should be another geographical latitude, Nero seems bewildered too. Dante turns up and looks puzzled and says it  must be the gate ???? Nero wonders how much can Dante know, again why did he just say that, Nero seems to be a cryptic nonsense speaker, mostly everything he says seems to be on a different page from the player.

Back to his holiness oh he's called sanctus, thanks library thing. Seems that The scantily clad chick Gloria is tasked with catching Dante, while Credo has been sent to get Nero and the sword Yamato. Agnus is back in human form, well it's no less puzzling than the rest. anyway back to the forest.

Big showdown with Credo here. Who reveals that he also can use demon powers, has he become a demon or is he just utilising the power of one seems to be the question. Does absolute power corrupt etc. Nero makes short work of Credo and Agnus turns up with Kyrie and shows her that Nero has the demon hand. Which he had been hiding from her. She seems shocked, Agnus turns into his cockroach demon form and flutters away with her thinking that they now have a hold on nero through his love of Kyrie. Credo forms an uneasy truce with Nero in horror that Sanctus has used his sister as a pawn in the game. He goes of to find answers leaving Nero to do the same.

Nero chases down Agnus to his "room" and there is a boss battle with him. Sanctus intervenes before Nero can finish him. Sanctus is now in his demon form, and is formidable. He steals Kyrie away and he and Agnus get away. Leaving Nero smashing the floor like an angry teenager, oh wait he is one. We find out that Nero has the power of the demon sparda whoever that may be??

Now Dante turns up again. seems he wants a sword, possibly the yamato one we made whole earlier? wonder why?

After beating dante in a boss battle which seems to start because he wants your sword, dante wins the fight after you take his health bar down. he then proceeds to tell you to keep the sword. Then Gloria turns up only she's not gloria, she pulls of her disguise and is another chick scantily clad only this time in black leather. Dante seems to know her well and she proceeds to ask him if he is sure he knows what he is doing. He seems sure although he tell her that he will kill Nero if he screws up? Confused, just a lot. This new character is not even given a name.

We find out that the Yamato sword was used to seperate the demon world from the human one.

More wtf, the saviour who so far i have noticed only one other reference to when gloria says may the saviour be with you is introduced. He is a huge statue which the level is built around getting up to his head, like an old school platformer, you have to use the lights and the devil bringer to hoist yourself around with many fine timed jumped and leaps.

Once at the to Sanctus turns up and lets Kyrie get absorbed into a bubble on the Saviour statues forehead. He wanted you to be in there too for some reason but it seems that just Kyrie will do. Then he turns on you for another boss battle.

After defeating Sanctus again he wins. Maybe someone should tell Capcom that they should make these fights impossible and have you defeated and then go onto these cut scenes.

Anyway the big statue comes to life and grabs nero. Credo turns up and is promplty stabbed and disposed of. Dante and Gloria turn up to watch the show. Nero is held captive by the statue and Sanctus uses the yamato sword to stab his devil bringer arm, thus giving the sword some of the demon sparda's blood. This seems to be needed and now the saviour ingests Nero holding him in what appears to be his heart. The Saviour is now fully animated and Sanctus gets Angus to use yamato to open the door between demon and human world. It seems that this has been his plan, bring about armageddon and then stop it with the saviour. The demons pour into the world and kill loads of the citizen, then saviour and sanctus roll up with their army and kill all the demons.

Dante and Gloria look on and then after a while decide they had better do something, We are now given control of dante.

Now wtf another new female character with unfeasible tits turns up and tells dante about an order who worship sparda in a distant town who may be up to no good, and he goes off to sort them out, what happened to the thing with Nero and Kyrie and the huge statute touring around the countryside tearing up the demon army that they also let into the world? Oh just forget that, it's off to sort out the local trouble that may or may not be anything really first????? Was that a flashback???

Showdown with Angus, killing him with a bullet to the head. Dante pulls out yamato from the pedestal i presume closing the big hellgate.

Yes and he then goes on to cut it to bits in an unfeasible manner.

Back through the entire game until the showdown with the saviour.

The story is progressing with dante freeing Nero to run around inside the saviour and find sanctus

after killing sanctus it's all over, although the demons are still rattling about and the city is totally wrecked, still sanctus is gone. Hooray.

Game Mechanics

I must confess that I am not a huge fan of the Devil May Cry genre, I don't actually know what to call them, Beat-em ups, I lump Ninja Gaiden and God of war into this genre.

Nothing is explained for the uninitiated however. It's straight in with Dante busting into a church service and killing the priest. Lots of hyperkinetic fighting and we are into a tutorial mission. Fighting Dante

It seems simple enough and then it's into the game proper

Throughout the first mission and probably for the rest of the game new moves pop up with a quick tutorial.

It's all about the combat in these games. I have never understood it really, most of the time people find a move that works and stick with it. I suppose that is why i am not a huge tekken or doa fan. DMC4 rewards the use of style and combo's quite how it decides that i am unsure at the moment after only a days play. Seems that if you attack with pistol and sword and knock the baddies into the air thus keeping them off the ground until you finish of their energy you get the most points. Taking out multiple enemies i presume helps too.

My first big boss fight was with a lion centaur hybrid fire demon which came through a black monolith, something like 2001 with runes on.

I didn't have a clue and just jumped at it and had at it with my sword. It seemed to work. I expect the next boss battle won't go so well. Simple to get into but hard to master maybe, we will see.

Camera switches view at junctions in the static view maps and sometimes leaves you suddenly running the wrong direction and going back the way you came without realizing there was a scene shift.

Got through two more levels, reusing the same scenery just opening up more areas.

Introduces the blades, which are like spinning tops you can charge up by hitting. They fly around causing all sorts of damage

Trampoline type runes found send you shooting up it the air, hard to control and the camera doesn't help

Moving the spinning tops around was fun for a few seconds but if there is much more of it then it will be getting old quickly, we will see.

Found two secret missions, both impossible, looks like secret missions won't be my thing until i get a whole lot better at this, one of them wanted me to kill five enemies with the buster glove move without touching the ground, i could only do one, i must be missing a way to keep nero in the air.

Found a room where you progress an effigy of yourself across a board by throwing a huge dice. After each turn a random event occurs, either enemies spawn to kill, or you are given a storm of health to gather or two laser beams chase you around for a set length of time. was interesting.

Whoo hoo lookie here, more powers. Wonder what this sword will give me.

disappearing platforms, wow funny camera strange viewpoint shifts and now platforms that only last a few seconds, at least they realize it's hard and make it easy, suppose it's variety.

I got the she vipers egg and can now kill demon trees which opens up areas i couldn't get to before, more back tracking next level it seems.

Yup more back tracking through the forest level, new monsers spawn, and a few more areas.

The old chestnut of having a hub area with three ways to go but only one being right is utilised with the shadows showing the right way to go, one you realise that it's easy, until you do an exercise in frustration.

Laser beams and dodging them by slowing down time now. Seems old school reminds me of teenage mutant ninja turtles arcade game. jumping between the lasers like and old skool 2d platform game, are we back to the 80's. Now we have a spinning turbine to jump up, reminds me of a level in sonic the hedgehog, only this time the perspective is all wrong and maybe i am getting old.

fighting Dante was fun, like fighting yourself only faster and slicker.

He is a huge statue which the level is built around getting up to his head, like an old school platformer, you have to use the lights and the devil bringer to hoist yourself around with many fine timed jumped and leaps.

First mission with dante sees us learning his moves getting back out of the headquarters of the order before it blows in ten minutes. So only ten minutes to familiarise yourself with Dante and his moves. If you haven't played any dmc games before then it's a steep learning curve. I presume if you have then it's like slipping on a old favourite item of clothing that had been lost for a while.

Hey look it's the entire forest level again, except we just have to make our way back to the boss battle with the serpent lady and kill her off, Looks like Dante is destroying the hellgates.

Are we seeing flashbacks, seeing what dante was doing while we were playing as nero? Not sure, would explain a lot.

More backtracking through the forest with similar enemies locking you in the area until you kill them. Only new thing is the octopus type demons that come up underneath you and suck you into a side cave until you beat up more monsters to get back out, also resetting the monster count to progress. No new ideas here. another time filling level. Still back to fortuna castle again yay.

Fighting serpent lady without the devil bringer to get us close is harder? boo i miss nero already, sure i will get the hang of Dante eventually.

Back through a fortuna castle blocked off mostly with ice, some new electric enemies that need shooting before you can hit them with the swords. Another fight with the bif frog.

A cut scene where Dante gets pandora's box which can transform into lots of different weapons, he uses it to kill four toads which turn up after your fight with the big one. Onto the next level back into the underground labs.

Back through the mine level big centaur boss again, get the lucifer weapon dull as dishwater, new firey dog enemies

Back through the city level, this time we can go to the nice looking areas that nero only got to peek at.

Onto the showdown with the saviour. Basically Dante jumps around floating masonary that accompanies the saviour and tries to hit blue targets or haemhorrhoids, capcom love their haemhorrhoids. After shooting all the small ones you have to hit the big one on his chest and forhead enough to take his energy down. Pesky enemies get in the way and the statue moves around and tries to hit you and shoot you. The graphics are impressive, brings me in mind of the first level of god of war 2.

In the end though it's nice for a minute but after you spend ages running around in the dark trying to hit everything and take his health down you are sick of it.

Then onto the almost game breaking level, remember the dice and moving the statute of you about bit, well here it is again three or four times with a boss battle at the end of each one. not a new boss battle the bosses we have fought already about twice over. Don't they ever die. Only this time you have to land the statue on the correct space in a loop to progress. Hitting that space is an excercise in frustration that will have you screaming and throwing the controller.

So once you have fought a hoard of baddies and four bosses you get to progress. There was no effort in this design, it's simply filler to make the game longer, so far there only seems to be city, snow, castle, forest headquarters levels so five levels are padded out to 18 odd levels with final bosses and the saviour thrown in.

Fighting sanctus now and after all that last malarky i am tired enough for the day. I haven't run out of time to play i have run out of will. i can feel myself shaking with rage and frustration, this isn't good for you.

Graphics

The enemies are weird looking things, it seems like they are made up of clothes and suits of armor, or even ice taken from the landscape and possessed by demons. Maybe the story will let us know more soon.

AT first the baddies lope along badly and don't seem much of a threat. Soon they get much more purposeful.

The style of the heroes is much more polished, long coats, stylish haircuts, skinny, chiseled jaws. The girls are either pure as the driven snow and demure or wearing next to nothing with curves a plenty.

The graphics are very slick. Most of the time you can rotate the camera around, except when it might slow down the action. Levels are broken up into very very small areas with small loads in-between. I suspect the 60fps frame rate which seems to be mostly in effect is kept in place by only being able to move the camera in smallish areas and judicious use of number of enemies. Sometimes you fight say ten enemies but after killing three out of four on the screen more teleport in. Sometimes when it's larger enemies only one or two are onscreen at once.

Anyway the forest level looks pretty. Let see how much better it looks than the arctic looking gothic castle.

Found the She-viper, nice graphics, slick and fast and impressive.