DMC1, during the 1st run on normal: orbs or skills?

I consider myself quite a bad player when it comes to games like DMC; I barely beat DMC4 on human and Bayonetta on normal mode, and now I'm playing DMC1 on normal difficulty.

As there seems to be no way of replaying previous missions (that is: farming red orbs in a way that doesn't feel like cheating), I'm wondering whether I should spend my reds on blue/purple orbs, or Alistor skills. I've so far completed first 8 missions, and I don't know if I really should buy some things or max orbs before hitting the wall permanently. So far I've been able to survive by panicking and sheer luck (the first encounter with the pesky spider, Phantom I believe it was called, took me numerous tries and drained me of yellow orbs).

I'm leaning towards buying the orbs, because them I can put to some use. If I buy skills, they may be for nothing because when I really need it, I probably won't be able to do the combos to utilise skills (except possibly the air hike).

I'd advise getting 3-4 purple orbs, then focus on skills. Stinger 2, Air Hike, and Meteor 2 should take priority.