Because this deserves its own post

I was already biased against this for various reasons (mostly art direction and whatnot), but this demo really did the trick. I had watched a few demo vids beforehand too, which looked OK. Almost fun. Until I got a good look at the controls. Thankfully, you can remap the controls. Nothing special, but at least you're not locked. What really annoyed me was the inclusion of 2 dodge options, but there's no lock-on. WHERE THE HELL IS THE LOCK-ON. I mean, I couldn't figure out how to use his Stinger until I read how to do it. It was forward-forward-attack (Y/Triangle). What the hell, Ninja Theory. Million(sorry) Trillion Stab is activated through Stinger, which IIRC, the same as the previous DMC games, but it lacks impact. It's also harder to connect to it from other moves. ETA: OK, DMC1's multi-stab move is actually activated through a combo. You can't really combo from the Stinger. For DMC3, it should be from using a Crazy Combo, or something like that (button mash like crazy). As for DMC2... Eh...

The only good thing, so far, was bringing back Brea. She suddenly reappeared on my YT feed with a combo vid. It was definitely faster than most of the other vids I had seen, but the JC'ing was pretty messed up. Because of how slow the animations were, everything was getting canceled too early. Was amusing to watch though, since it resulted in Dante spazzing like a freak. Not stylish at all. Start up animations are really long, which is a bit of an issue when cancelling because you count on the move hitting the enemy to cancel recovery. Definitely not twitch-based since you don't have that many frames to work with.

The Style System was kinda broken before, but now it's completely broken. There's no reason for it to be built around scoring as much damage as possible in a single strike. This meant that the Arbiter, the axe, was the single most useful weapon during the demo because of its extremely high attack power. Coupled with easily telegraphed attacks, you can just dodge+hit without much issue. And this is coming from someone that hasn't played in about 3 years. I'm really out of practise. You should not be able to score an SSS ranking within 30 seconds with piss-poor timing (the Demon Dodge has a massive window to work with, much larger than Bayo's Witch Time). I can understand if it were a Distorted multi-hit attack that wipes out at least 1/2 a health bar. Actually, don't think that's possible either without initiating counters. Not even spamming Lucifer (which is kinda easy to do) can get up to SS comfortably. Anyways, I saved a bunch of links that echoed my concerns for the game. I'll probably pick it up along the way on sale on Steam. I'm not about to drop money on this for a console, especially knowing that it performs worse on the PS3 (can definitely blame UE3 for that, not that it's a bad engine). A DMC not hitting 60fps is unacceptable. Neither is the difficulty. It shouldn't be original DMC3-level hard, but still enough to actually be threatening. I mean, not having any practice for 3 years then running in on Nephilim without dying? Sure, I screwed up the boss fight a few times, but even that was too easy (used the Vital Star, even if it turned out that I didn't need it).

Default controls (PS3, because I didn't download it on my X360):
Jump - X
Shoot - S
Basic - T
Special - O
Angel - L2
Demon - R2
Evade 1/2 - L1/R1
Devil Trigger - L3+R3
Gun Special - X+T
Cycle Gun - U
Cycle Angel Weapon - L
Cycle Demon Weapon - R
Center Camera - R3
Cycle Ranged Target - L3


Devil Stars are now Devil Trigger Stars (what). Health Crosses instead of Blue Orbs. Devil Trigger Crosses instead of Purple Orbs. They're really gunning for that cross theme. Gold Orbs are still there. It's just a demo, but you can apparently carry up to 10 for each of the S/L Vital and Devil Stars. Definitely less than the 30 from DMC4, but I somehow doubt you'll need that many. It's certainly not as restrictive as the original DMC, seeing as you couldn't even carry more than 1 on the higher difficulties. Then again, that game was a offshoot from Bio4, so I guess it ended up retaining some of the survival-horror elements.

Idle animations: looking around. And... not much else. I might have seen something else, but I didn't want my controller to idle for too long (it goes auto-off after 10 minutes).

Seemingly random capitalization here and there. Even missing ones. It's really nitpicking at this point, but it does speak ill of their presentation. The font, while it's not ugly or as bad as the rather wide one Capcom used for their Sengoku Basara localization, looks pretty bad when blown up to the full screen. I'll have to check how it looks when forced to 1080p. I have the PS3 to output its native resolution (1280*720, supposedly at 60Hz). I find the colours to be over-saturated, but that just might be the screen settings. It's also probably what they were going for since the normal world's colours are rather drab.

The Achievement/Trophy list is also out. Not sure how accurate or official it is, but in a way it's a nice nod to the original series. Most of them of are lines from the previous games. Let's see if I remember them all...

Achievement	Origin
Time to go to work guys!	DMC1 - Dante firing E&I on motorcycle
Come on Puppy. Let's go!	DMC3 - Cerberus battle
Thing drives me crazy	DMC4 - Nero, referring to his arm after fighting Berial (M02)
Only kind of gift worth giving	DMC4 - Dante giving Nero Yamato (M20)
Flock off, feather-face!	DMC1 - Dante vs. Griffon 1
It's got to stay in the family	DMC4 - Dante to Nero, talking about Yamato (M10)
This baby sure can pack a punch	DMC4 - Nero, about the Devil Bringer (M02)
He's a demon too	DMC3 - Lady, referring to Dante after she shoots him (M07)
You are not a Human, are you?	DMC3 - Dante, after defeating Cerberus (M03)
More than just a few sparks	DMC4 - Dante, after defeating Berial (M16)
No talking!	DMC3 - Agni&Rudra acquisition (M05)
Whatever, Lady	DMC3 - Dante dismissing Lady (M09)
You're not going to shoot me	DMC3 - Jester, to Dante (M12)
It's time to finish this!	DMC4 - Dante telling Nero to hurry up (M20)
Cleaning up his Dad's mess	DMC3 - pretty much the whole plot (spoken by Dante while talking to Beowulf, M11)
The end? Don't bet on it	DMC3 - M01
Looks like it's your lucky day	DMC2 - Dante "accepting" his job from Matier
Every hero has a weakness	DMC2 - Dante to Lucia (D-M14)
It's only the rain	DMC3 - ending
A man with guts and honor	DMC1 - vs. Nelo Angelo 3
Now my coat's all charred	DMC4 - Dante vs. Berial
Where does the time go?	DMC3 - Dante "accepting" Vergil's invitation (M02)
For Tony Redgrave	DMC - Dante's alias, engraved on his guns
In the name of my father	DMC1 - Dante declaring that he'll kill Mundus (M16)
You'll never have her fire	DMC1 - Dante, to Trish after Nightmare 2
Impressive	DMC3 - Rudra, after Dante's showy display (M05)
Bring it on!	DMC3 - Dante
Looks like we have a winner	DMC1 - Trish, vs. Mundus 3
Sensational!	DmC Devil May Cry - SSS style ranking
It's showtime. Come on!	DMC3 - Dante vs. Cerberus (M03)
This is my kind of rain	DMC3 - Catching Lady after she falls (M07)
Absolutely crazy about it	DMC3 - Dante, ending
Let's rock, baby!	DMC1 - Dante, breaking the warning screen
You can't handle it	DMC3 - Vergil telling Arkham he can't handle Sparda's power (M19)
Power... Give me more power!	DMC4 - Nero's awakening
Dude, the show's over!	DMC3 - M13
Let's welcome chaos!	DMC3 - Arkham breaking the seal (M13)
And you are set free	DMC4 - Lucifer acquisition
Fill your dark soul with light	DMC1 - narmtastic scene of Trish's "death"
Keeps getting better and better	DMC3 - Dante getting ditched by Lady (M03)
Stylish!	DMC - general. Appeared as S style rank in 1
Too easy!	DMC3 - Dante after acquiring Cerberus (M03)
Devils never cry	DMC1 - Dante consoling Trish DMC3 - ending
This is what I live for!	DMC3 - ending
And welcome to Hell!	DMC3 - Jester, M05
Jackpot!	DMC - general finisher
This party's just getting crazy!	DMC3 - start
One hell of a party!	DMC3 - start

Looks like most of those are quotes. Not too surprising, although some of them are quite similar to other quotes from within the series. Did end up looking them up (scripts!) to clean it up and add which missions they were from (not all though). Turns out that I didn't miss that many of them~

I might have more thoughts later if I go back to it. Got Project X Zone from a StreetPass friend, so who knows. There's still SoS mode to conquer.