Walkthrough

This walkthrough is written under the assumption that the player is playing on Devil Hunter difficulty with the Automatic setting set to Off. In other words, the hardest default difficulty settings; harder difficulties will be unlocked after you beat the game, but you're on your own for those!

Our goal when writing this walkthrough was to make it through each level on Devil Hunter difficulty without continuing or using any items. It's very possible, especially if you've played DMC3. As part of writing a guide, however, it was often necessary to play through each mission two or three times, which gave us a few more Proud Souls than you might get if you play straight through. If you're having a hard time getting through a mission, try replaying an earlier one for more Proud Souls and using them to upgrade your abilities!

Mission 01: Birds of a Feather

Not too much to say about this mission. It's a fairly straightforward tutorial combined with a boss fight against Dante. If it's your first time playing DMC4, be sure to play with tutorial mode on, as the tutorials will tell you what you need to do here. (Actually, even if you play with tutorials off, there'll still be plenty of hand-holding here.)

Heh. Kind of tickles.

After completing all the tutorials, you'll have the opportunity to take on Dante himself. It's actually somewhat difficult to lose this fight, as it's intended to simply be an introduction to wrap up the tutorials that you've been learning. Since you don't have many combat abilities at this point, there won't be much that you can do aside from whacking him with your sword and using your Buster on him whenever you get close to him. Bustering him seems to be the best move here, as it'll often launch you into a special animation wherein you'll blast him for critical damage on his weak spot. Do your best to destroy the benches while you fight; your end rating depends on how many red orbs you find, and they're all hidden away inside the benches.

Mission 02: La Porte De L'Enfer

If you have the cash (you should've obtained around 100 Proud Souls for winning the first mission), go to the Power Up menu and buy the Streak ability under the Red Queen menu. Note that every other ability on this screen goes up in cost by 100 orbs when you buy this ability; that'll continue as you obtain more abilities, so you can look forward to a bit of inflation as you proceed.

Opera House Plaza

Not much to see here. Kill the Scarecrows that accost you and destroy the benches to find more red orbs.

Storehouse

After you enter this screen, walk up the steps that apparently lead to a smooth wall and double-jump upwards off of the wall above you. That'll lead you to a Gold Orb, which you can use to automatically continue when you die. It'll be helpful in the boss fight at the end of this level.

Get used to destroying objects in the environment to nab orbs.

When you have the Gold Orb, head upstairs and kill the rest of the foes up there. If you haven't been using it much, try using your Buster move in the middle of a combo. You can also perform the High Roller move to launch an enemy up into the air, then use Buster on them while they're in midair. It'll take a while to get used to the ways in which you can meld your moves together, but practice makes perfect!

Terrace/Business District

The peons are rioting, but there's nothing you can do about it just yet.

Cathedral

Head to the bottom of this area and grab the item on the altar in front of you. It'll unlock your ability to use your Devil Bringer to grab items. You'll need to target something, then use the Devil Bringer button to send out a phantasmic hand to grab onto it. There's a Vital Star S in one of the small cells here; be sure to track it down and grab it through the bars.

When you're ready to move on, stand on the glowing blue platform, target the grapple point that appears, and hook onto it to move upward. Move on from here in the same manner to reach the exit. The large red orb you saw earlier is by the exit door; you can Devil Buster it over to you now before leaving.

Terrace/Business District

Grapple your way across the street here. You'll find Secret Mission 01: Annihilation on the pillar just after you land. Check our section on the secret missions for details on beating it, but it's not difficult to figure out, although it may be difficult to do until you upgrade your abilities a bit more.

Apart from that, simply keep moving through the district at this point. You'll eventually come to a largish fight and be able to move on.

Mmm…orb fragment.

Residential District

Fight your way down the alleyways here until you come to a huge red orb. Strike it repeatedly to break it off into more red orbs for yourself. Nearby, a small trail of tiny red orbs will lead you up to the rooftops, where you can find a Blue Orb Fragment.

Port Caerula

There's a red orb that you can double-jump to just outside the exit of the first cave here. When you have it, head southwest and use the Devil Bringer to warp across the docks. Head through the doorway that you find.

Customs House

Kill the enemies here, then strike the glowing blue pedestal until you can move on. Head through the door at the top of the room, then examine the controls to drop the bridge.

Port Caerula

Kill your way back to the bridge and head across.

First Mining Area

Drop into the water near the beginning of this area to find a few red orbs, then snatch your way upwards. The creature chained to the floating pedestal nearby is a Combat Adjudicator; you need to hit her until you get up to a B style in order to unlock her goodies, which includes a bunch of red orbs and another Blue Orb Fragment.

There's a demon statue nearby, where you can cash in the red orbs you've been finding. You should have more than enough to buy a Blue Orb, if not two; spend as much cash as you can on them. Each Blue Orb that you buy will extend your life bar by one bubble, and that's going to be pretty handy as the game goes on.