La Vita Nuova is the twentieth and final mission of Devil May Cry 4.
Walkthrough[]
Sacred Heart[]
The heart of the beast. Here, you fight Sanctus Diabolica.
Boss: Sanctus Diabollica[]
You must listen to the audio cues which Sanctus says as he attacks you, following this guide will make you outmatch him easily. Also look out for flashes as he attacks you when they appear.
Normal Set of Attacks[]
- "Repent!"/"You will fail!" – Sanctus launches a ground wave attack once or usually twice, jump and Snatch on him to avoid these. Note: When he says "Repent!" he will only do this attack once. When he says "You will fail!" he will do the attack twice.
- "The Savior is coming!" – Sanctus restores his shield, move away from him so you won't get caught in the blast.
- "Burn!" – Sanctus would then shoot you fireballs, remember, do not jump and keep your feet on the ground so you will not be hit.
- Airstrike – Sanctus launches laser airstrikes to defend himself, remember that you will only get hit when you jump, so be on the ground.
- "Resistance is futile!" – When you see Sanctus lowering the Sparda, Snatch him quickly to avoid being hit with this lightning ground attack.
- "I sentence you to death!" – When you hear Sanctus say this line, either strike him three to five times to interrupt the attack, or move out of the way when you see pillars of red light.
- Orb missile – Sanctus will occasionally send one of his orbs at you like a missile. Shooting it with Blue Rose will stop its motion.
- Orb ring – Sanctus will disappear and you will be surrounded by a ring of little orbs that close in you to do considerable damage. The easiest way out of this is to roll, dodge, or jump so they close in at the wrong height.
Sparda Attacks[]
- Slash – From time to time, he will disappear and will teleport to the ground near you, where he will attack you with a slow move from the Sparda. Listen to Sanctus' groans in order to determine how many times he will slash. When he says "roooof!!!", he will slash once. When he says "raaaaagggh!!!" He will slash you twice.
- "The power of the sword!"/"Prepare for judgement!" – When Sanctus' Vitality Gauge is near death, he charges you with the Sparda, time your Buster to counter this. After saying "power of the sword", Sanctus will charge you with the Sparda four times. Afterwards, he says "Prepare for judgment" and charges you again for the last time. Each of these charges can be countered by Buster.
- If playing as Lady or Vergil, the charges can be countered with a regular attack. It is easiest with Lady's Bayonet Sweep or Vergil's Rapid Slash.
Buster Strategy:
- After Sanctus is knocked to the ground, perform a Buster to hold him up and deliver a powerful haymaker to his face. The attack is slightly more powerful as an Air Buster, and Summoned Swords can be fired during the attack as a Devil Buster.
- Sparda Counter: This is essentially the same as the normal Buster attack, but it can be used to interrupt his Sparda Stinger attack. To successfully perform this, execute a Buster as Sanctus draws back to attack with the Sparda.
- Just before using Buster you have enough time to take down half a bar of his health with sword attacks. Do this and you'll kill him much faster.
- If you're confident, Snatch Sanctus close to you after you destroyed his barrier and immediately execute a Showdown, which deals almost double the amount of damage a Devil Triggered Buster can provide. Then, right after Showdown is finished, you can Snatch him up close again and chain another Buster.
Though Sanctus has taken on a more demonic form, the method for defeating is nearly the same. You need to first get close to Sanctus and destroy his shield, and then attack him after he drops to the ground.
At the outset, the strategy from before will work well: wait for his "The Savior is coming!" speech to end, and Sanctus will have his shield up. After that, you can try to Snatch his little orbs, get close, and whack him with your mid-air combo. Breaking the outer shell will usually be fairly easy; it's what happens afterwards that will start to cause you problems.
First off, the "Burn!" shout and attendant fireballs will still annoy the bojangles out of you; it's in your best interest to simply avoid Sanctus when he cries this out. New annoyances, however, include his ability to teleport, which he'll usually do by disappearing from midair and appearing on the ground near you before attacking. If you can dodge this attack, you can counterattack while he remains on the ground and send him straight to Busterville, but it can be tricky to get the timing down, since he disappears fairly quickly after he swings at you.
Also, Sanctus will periodically raise his sword up and use it as a shield. He can do this on the ground or in the air, but will usually do it in the air. This will reflect all attacks that come his way, making further progress on his shield pretty much impossible. However, if you jump near him and use a straightforward Buster on him, the sword will drop, allowing you to jump back up and hit him with your sword to move on to the supercombo stage. You will probably have to jump from the ground to hit the initial Buster; using Snatch will usually fling you over Sanctus' head.
Opera House Plaza[]
There's not much room to move around here, but you don't need to. Just stand in place and time your Busters to win.
Boss: The False Savior[]
After a couple of cutscenes, it will be Nero versus the False Savior for all the marbles. Luckily for you, this is a short fight. Keep in mind that you will carry over the amount of health you had from when you ended the fight with Sanctus. If you don't have very much of it, activate Devil Trigger or use a healing item.
At any rate, you need to use your Buster here on both of False Savior's hands. He'll attack with his right hand first, pounding it into the ground on top of you. You can dodge this by rolling away to your left just before it hits. Do so, then turn around and use Buster on the fist before it raises up off the ground. After that happens, he'll rear back with his left hand and swing it across your little area. You need to hit this fist in mid-swing as it comes your way. It can be difficult to time this, but if you double-jump as the elbow hits its farthest point away from you, then use Buster in mid-air, you should connect. You'll probably need to try it a few times before you pull it off.
When the head of the False Savior comes down, use Buster on it to finish it off and end the game. Congratulations!
Credits[]
There's a section that plays over the end credits where you have to protect Kyrie from rampaging Scarecrows. Stand near Kyrie and start Snatching the enemies towards you, then repelling them with Streak. If you can prevent her from getting hit for 90 seconds, you'll witness an extra cutscene featuring Dante, Trish, and Lady after the end credits.
Alternatively, a very easy way to complete the ending credits is to use Charge Shot 1. Stand close to Kyrie and strafe a short distance from side to side, firing as soon as you see the first flash from charging. While it doesn't do much damage, it does knock them down. Make sure to cover both sides of the fountain.
Trivia[]
- The title of this last mission, "La Vita Nuova", is the name of a text by Dante Aligheri. It is a prosimetrum—a work containing both prose and poetic verse—about the subject of courtly and sacred love, and in particular Dante's own love for Beatrice Portinari.
- The Sacred Heart is a reference to the famous Roman Catholic devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
- Starting from Devil Hunter mode, Sanctus has a special attack after disappearing. He summons a circle of little orbs and attack Nero. This can be avoided by just jumping when they close in to you or simply Snatching one of the orbs before they get too close.
- In the Special Edition:
- The battle against the False Savior is skipped if the player character is not Nero as it requires using Devil Bringer to beat.
- If the player character is Lady, and the resulting rank for the mission is B or lower, the player will control Trish in the credits instead.