Since E3 2005, there have been rumors of Devil May Cry 3 being ported to the PSP, but we have never heard anything substantial about it. The closest we ever got was when Sony accidentally listed Devil May Cry on a list of games supported by third-party companies, but they never bothered to comment on that- which is why I find it weird that a “non-existant” game just got cancelled.

In the new issue of Famitsu, a PSP version of Devil May Cry as being cancelled, even though it had never been confirmed. When contacted for questioning, Capcom said, “Devil May Cry was once listed in a long string of titles in potential development for the PSP when the system was first announced.” Turns out that the game ddi exist, it just wasn’t public. Bad news for all of the DMC fans out there, but do you think it would’ve worked? Would you have enjoyed a Devil May Cry game for the PSP?

I took a little heat in our day four E3 podcast when I began to describe SEGA’s new third person action game, Bayonetta — so I decided to whip up some very quick sketches from memory to help those reading better visualize what I saw first hand in SEGA’s Platinum Games showcase room.

Bayonetta is currently being developed by Hideki Kamiya, the former director of DMC1, which makes perfect sense since everything about this game seemed to kick ass. From the moment the demo started, the room was captivated.

You play as Bayonetta, a very lean and mean witch decked out in what appears to be a skin tight leather suit. If that’s not enough to demand your attention, she is also equipped with guns in nearly every place imaginable. Bang bang!

Graphically, the look was a mix of DMC and Final Fantasy. Beautifully colored architecture and scenery complimented with breathtakingly detailed enemies. The enemies we got a look at consisted of a smaller crew of three to four and one larger boss. They all had a similar robotic look — halo adorned heads, pure white skin tone, covered with intricate gold colored armor. From what I could gather, the halo’s are collected and used as power ups which help your character advance.

The look is DMC meets FF. Not a bad combination if you ask me.

Mob enemies featured in demo. Boss looked similar only much bigger.

In terms of moves, they highlighted a few which involved the use of her many guns. The most memorable involved her doing a rotating hand stand with her legs split in different directions. From this position, she spun around, firing rounds from her high heel mounted guns. Yes, I said high heel mounted guns. In addition to the whirlwind of leg launching bullets, she can also suspend herself in mid air and fire successive rounds at a target in what appeared to be some sort of time slowing mode.

Dodging an enemy initiated a mode they referred to as “Witch Time”, which causes the area around her to dim a bit in color, freezing all nearby enemies, and allowing her to perform more powerful attacks. During this time, we witnessed a few “hair moves” that had everyone laughing in sheer amazement.

The first involved a portal opening and then launching a large boot made of her own twirled hair at several enemies. The presenter said that this move would mimic that of what you are doing with the character, meaning if you are kicking, it will launch a boot — and if you are punching, a giant fist would come flying out of the portal. Below is a sketch that I did to better illustrate what it looked like on screen.

Bayonetta gives bad guys the big hairy boot.

The second took place during what appeared to be some sort of boss or min boss fight. Bayonetta was hammering away at the gold plated creature, knocking away layers of armor with each series of hits she successfully landed. Suddenly, she switched from firing, and unleashed a giant dragon made from her own hair at the target. The dragon spun up from behind the enemy, taking it by surprise, and then dove head first into its mid section to finish it off. Again, I have tried my best to provide a sketch from memory of what it looked like.

Bayonetta’s hair switches to dragon form to finish off a boss.

To recap, Bayonetta comes equipped with guns and radically possessed hair, but that isn’t the extent of her witchy woman abilities — she can also summon “torture attacks” based on the direction she is facing. We witnessed one called Iron Maiden and another called Guillotine, which essentially was a gigantic smoke black colored guillotine that forced an ememy in to position for a swift head chopping. Very big crowd-pleaser.

You will be able to shoot in multiple directions simultaneously, however, when I asked how the targeting mechanics worked, they responded by saying that was something they were still in the process of fine tuning.

Overall, I was very impressed from what I saw on screen from both an asthetic and purely imaginative perspective, however much more will be revealed when we actually have a chance to play the game. This is definitly a title we will be looking to follow very closely here at Ripten.

After about an hour of repeatedly playing the just-released demo of Devil May Cry 4, I’ve found myself effectively shot in the face with action-packed delight. DMC4 really is a return to form for the series, even though the protagonist is an all-new character.

Before I even begin, let me say that if you have broadband and access to the Playstation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace, go start downloading the demo right now. It’ll be a third of the way done by the time you finish reading this, and you’ll thank me for it.

Moving on.

There are two missions available in the demo: Exterminator and Executioner. Exterminator is a 10-minute timed game that basically involves running through gothic architecture while dicing up demons. Executioner is not timed and involves running through gothic architecture in the snow in order to get to what I think were mini-bosses, called Frosts, and then finally to the big fiery demon, Berial.

Nero finds the ripten logo to be quite sexy.

I played Exterminator first. I wasted about four of my ten minutes just screwing around, getting used to the controls, and just kinda looking at the environment. The first thing I noticed was how absolutely silky smooth everything ran. The framerate and animations were incredibly fluid.

The graphics themselves aren’t really what I would call “breathtaking”, but they were made all the more impressive by crisp textures and an overall lack of jaggies. The opera house where you begin the mission is plastered with intricate detail and shimmering gold trim. I futzed around with the camera until I could get to a position where I could see the textures close up, and they surprisingly still looked nice and not as blurry as most games tend to look.

Yeah, that little speck on the bridge is you.

I then ran off to find some bad guys to see if the engine can handle the extra stress. Again, the game really showed some muscle. Not once was there any slowdown or stuttering — it stood strong in the face of adversity.

Going into battle was easy as pie — whoop-ass pie, and my enemies were the filling. Right bumper locks onto targets, which shows a blue ring representing both the enemy’s health and the simple fact that you are locked on. The face buttons then have your sword and gun attacks, jump, and Devil Bringer.

The Devil Bringer is the only thing here that really needs an explanation. Basically, it’s some crazy mystical gauntlet that allows you to pile-drive enemies into the ground, snatch them from afar, and zip across gaps Legend of Zelda grappling hook-style. To be honest, I felt the grappling hook ability to be a usable gameplay mechanic, but somewhat clichéd and not really fitting in the context of the game. Maybe that’s just me.

Continuing on, I found myself surrounded by demons as the timer hit zero. I’m treated to a “Coming Soon” screen before being booted back to the main menu. I guess I’ll try out the other mission now — Executioner.

The mission starts on a snowy cliff-side path to a castle gate. I start heading down the path and this is where I notice another nice little feature. Running in one direction for about 3 seconds or so initiates a sprint. It makes it considerably less arduous to navigate around these huge environments when it doesn’t take so damn long to do it. Nice touch, Capcom.

I come to a bridge, which obviously has to collapse when I walk on it, and I fall to the ruins below. Two icy creatures, apparently called Frosts, appear in the obligatory cutscene, I fight them off with great skill because I am awesome. Upon their inevitable deaths, they unlock the guarded-by-red-demon-essence path, and I enter.

This takes me to a bridge, which I cross, and on the other side lies a huge castle door. Entering somehow transports me to a wooden old-west-looking shanty town, where a huge fiery four-legged demon, named Belial, appears and proceeds to set the entire place aflame by his mere presence. A nice conversation ensues, after which he totally destroys me and sends me back to the Main Menu.

I purposely did not include the scene where he kicks my ass.

Now, out of curiosity, I load up the first mission again to see how far I can get in the time limit. A few times I completely ignore some of the bad guys because I’m not obligated to kill them to move on, as I do have a time limit.

During this playthrough, I notice that Nero is too cool for ladders. Near the end of the stage, there is a switch you have to hit, and it has a ladder leading right to it. I try to use the ladder, I guess because I’m just an ordinary guy using ordinary guy logic, but Nero won’t have it. I instead have to jump onto a platform, and from there jump up to the switch. Using a conveniently-placed ladder is apparently not something a bad-ass would do. Okay, then… Anyhow, I hit the switch and run to the end of the stage.

Coincidentally, making it to the end of the Exterminator mission within the time limit actually starts you on the Executioner mission, albeit with absolutely no chance of actually fighting through it because of the time limit. That doesn’t really matter, though, since you can just start the Executioner mission over from the menu and not be restricted by the timer.

At this point, I’m pretty sure that these missions are not pulled right from the game. What I mean is, I don’t think there is a snowy cliff-side path on the other side of a door in a watery city, and I don’t think a door in a snowy castle courtyard would lead to a flaming wooden town. Maybe that just seems obvious, but the way these kooky storylines go, you never can be too sure.

I really only have one gripe about the game, and that’s the camera. Like pretty much all games that feature the dynamically shifting, completely uncontrollable camera angles, I find the transitions somewhat disorienting sometimes. Going around a corner and having the camera shift a full 90 degrees while you’re still moving in the same direction is uncomfortable.

I move forward while holding up on the analog stick, only to have the camera shift views and make it so that if I continue to hold up, I’m now going left. Maybe it’s my auto-correcting brain raised on role-playing games where confusion attacks reverse your controls, but this camera issue makes me walk in undesired directions, sometimes take hits that I should have avoided, and occasionally go back to an area that I had just transitioned out of.

I’m sure die-hard fans of these types of games don’t have this issue, but I do and I’m sure others do as well. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker, and doesn’t really detract from the game other than a few minor unnecessary frustrations.

So, minor annoyances aside, I think the demo overall can best be summed up with the words “fucking awesome”. To be completely honest, I wasn’t overly excited to play another Devil May Cry game. This demo, however, makes me feel like I’m playing the first Devil May Cry all over again, except it’s new and different from last time. You owe it to yourself to at the very least check out the demo now (it’s free and should already be partially downloaded, right?), if not the full game when it releases this February.

The Capcom representative replied to a comment along the lines of “Why the hell won’t it be on PSN!?” with this:

“Wait a little while longer and the demo strategy will be clear.
I’ll say this: The information printed above and in that article as written is incorrect.
The news you’re looking for is not far off... a little more patience please.”

The implication here seems to be a simultaneous release of a demo on both the PSN and XBLM in December. Exciting stuff, since we’ve been waiting for this beauty for so long. At least Playstation3 owners have, for the game was only revealed to be coming to the Xbox360 earlier this year.

Whether the demo will just be released in Japan like the original article suggests, we can’t say. Still, this wouldn’t be a problem for PS3 owners, since they are able to download content from other countries.

The Official DMC4 website is said to be updating on December 5th with news of this demo, so we shall keep you posted. In the meantime here are some pictures of the demo mission from the PS3 version, alongside some notes about the mission.

(Please click on the images to enlarge: Source Ruliweb.com)

Notes on the demo:

*90% chance the demo will be the same demo as seen since January. A quick walkthrough of Fortuna. After you beat that area you get to go straight to the icy level and fight a group of Frosts. The final mission in the demo will be the fight with Berial. This type of pacing/level design is not at all a representative of the final game as the demo seems to be snippets of 3 missions worked into one package as a bare bones demonstration of Nero’s capabilities.

*These mini-missions are selectable from the start and you can choose whatever you want. The first image illustrates this.

*Do not expect Dante to be playable and do not expect the new jungle areas with Blades and Echidna or the new Lucifer/Gilgamesh weapon.
*No story driven cutscenes will be shown in the demo aside from perhaps the first cutscene of the game. Capcom is keeping the story underwraps very heavily.
*Nero will not have any abilities outside of Snatch, Buster, Exceed, his gun and sword combos.

Via Neogaf. Thanks goes to LordMe.