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Being a member of the press is good, because you can get away with nearly everything just by flashing the "press" sticker around. At the Tokyo Game Show today, we were the first members of the North American press at Capcom's booth, and we got to go through Capcom's Devil May Cry 4 twice before Capcom representatives asked us to leave.

From earlier news, we know that Dante is no longer the main character in the game. Rather, Nero is his replacement. Sporting a dual-barrel pistol and his sword called the Red Queen, Nero is similar in playing style to Dante but with a few key differences. The main change is the inclusion of the Devil Arm/Buster move, which is executed by pressing O. By pressing O by itself, you can execute a simple punch/throw move which will slam enemies into the ground. However, the fun really starts when you start using the Devil Arm move, which is done by pressing O in conjunction with the analog stick. Nero will then extend his arm out, and a ghoulish arm will extend even further, grab an enemy (or enemies) and reel them in for an extended combo. This works not only on the ground, but in the air as well. You can easily jump up and then extend the Devil Arm and start an air combo, then finish off with the Buster, which will slam them back into the ground. Not only is this an effective way to continue combos, but it also helps you clear out enemies faster; you can actually grab multiple enemies at the same time if they're bunched together.

The acceleration system that was mentioned previously doesn't seem to be implemented just yet, because during a melee we were able to simply mash on the slash button without any penalty. Nero's melee attacks are slightly different than what Dante has. There's the standard four hit combo and the uppercut-style slash that allows you to start air combos. Nero's Stinger attack is different from Dante in that it's a horizontal slash rather than a straight thrust, which allows you to cut through multiple enemies at the same time. Nero's firing rate is a little slower than Dante, but that's to be expected because he's only carrying one gun. Because the new system wasn't added to the demo, the game feels a lot like previous iterations rather than a wholly new experience. It's disappointing because I personally hoped that playing Nero would be really different from Dante, but at this point it isn't.

As far as visuals go, DMC4 was looking absolutely incredible and probably better than any other demo on the show floor today. The amount of detail that every character has is unbelievable. Even the Marionettes had textures that had to be seen to be believed. You can actually see the stitching on each part of their bodies, and they look much more manufactured than before. That's not a bad thing either; instead of looking like an enemy that was designed as a whole, they actually look like someone grabbed random pieces and threw them together to make a diabolical creation. The lighting effects were also really nice, especially in the latter part of the demo. The first part of the demo took place in the courtyard and castle, where you could see the sun streaking through the windows of the castle. But the second part of the demo took place in an abandoned harbor, with the sun slowly setting. Here you could see the sunlight reflecting off the ocean, creating an incredible visual effect.

While the demo took about 10 to 20 minutes to finish depending on how good you were (it took us a good 12 minutes to get through it) it ended with the biggest cocktease ever. Previous DMC demos allowed you to play through a level and fight an endboss. This was the case with DMC1 where you could fight the Phantom (the giant spider) and in DMC3 where you fought Cerberus. We've seen footage of the giant Barlog-ish boss from the trailer, and we were pumped up and ready to take him on. At the end of the demo, we stumbled upon a giant barrier that started to sear from the extreme heat. We saw the Barlog burst through the barrier. We were ready to fight it!

We got a "Coming Soon..." message.

Bollocks, Capcom. Just Bollocks. We'll have more info on the game in the coming days. Stay tuned!