Classic DMC = Yay~

It took a little bit, but I finally bought End of Eternity (NA version -> Resonance of Fate), Bayonetta for the X360 and the Devil May Cry HD collection for the PS3. The only one left is Vanquish, but I have no idea how hard it is to find it. It wasn't hard tracking down a copy online, but I kinda want to support the local game shop that's a walk away. Plus, the store owner kinda knows what I like to play, so that's always good.

Having bothered booting up EoE or Bayo yet, so I ended up spending time with the DMC collection. More specifically, the original DMC. Because it's still my favourite out of all of them despite all the advancements to the systems throughout the years. Made it to Mission 3 before deciding to stop for some studying. I thought I was going to be able to complete Mission 1 without taking damage, but that was thrown out the window as soon as I started getting swarmed by Marionettes. Luckily, they didn't kill me. Unfortunately, I don't remember them doing that much damage on Normal! It was a pretty good wake-up call, since a lot of the games I've been playing were a little bit on the easy side, until I decide to ramp up the difficulty (that's not to say I don't enjoy easy games, just want a bit of a challenge).

Still love the castle, cheesy voice acting and whatnot, even 11 years after I've started playing it. Got up to Mission 3 then stopped. I don't know if I'm quite ready to take on Phantom, even though I remember the strategies behind it. I'll take a stab at it at some point. Not right now though.

And since I'm still looking for Vanquish, I decided to play the demo for the time being. Showed me just how badly I suck at those kinds of games. Still doesn't stop me from playing them though! Died 5 times during it, suffered a 5000pt. deduction for it. I think I might be able to get through the mission without taking too many deaths if I try again. At least I know how to pace the battle now to keep the turrets around long enough to force the boss to show its cores. It's just really fun sliding around, engaging in bullet time, shooting up your enemies, etc. It's got a really fast pace, which is something I like. It might be a little too fast at the moment, but I'll get used to it eventually.

I'll get a Borderlands post up at some point. Still playing around with Mordecai and haven't exactly planned out his skill set. I think I'll go for being a sneaky little bastard. Although using Bloodwing is starting to look more attractive because of improving drops...

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.

Playing demos

Finally got the PS3 online... by moving upstairs temporarily. It was weird... Early in the day it was hovering around 30~35%, then I left for a little grocery shopping. When I came back, the download at the time, Biohazard 6, had advanced from 6% to a measly 35%. In the span of 3 hours. I was, however, able to get onto the PSN for a short amount of time. With that, I managed to nab the E.X. Troopers and DmC Devil May Cry demos (why does DmC have to be that long?). They, uh, didn't really progress for quite a while. In fact, they barely downloaded 3MB before "stopping", which was around 3PM when I last checked. I put the system to shut down once all downloads were finished, which it did when I checked again at around 6PM. No idea when the connection decided to cooperate because all downloads were finished and installed, even the demos that I didn't bother installing at least 5 months ago (whee~ Dragon's Dogma). Not going to complain, since the connection eventually ended up hovering around the 57% range and stayed that way through the night + Sunday morning when I decided to play the demos.

Speaking of which, I played 4 of them. I felt "this is fun~" for 2 of them, "..." for one, and "what the hell is this" for the last. Those who know me well enough can probably guess which ones got which reactions. But I'll spell it out anyways, mostly because of reactions to them.

This is fun~:
E.X.Troopers for both the 3DS and PS3 were great. Love the arcade feel to the missions, so I really don't know which version I want to get. It's not like I'm going to be playing co-op online for the PS3 version, and locally for the 3DS. I mean, really. Who's crazy enough to import a Lost Planet spin-off at this point in time? No one knows if it's going to be localized either, although I wouldn't count on it simply because of its visual style. Just look at it! Brightly coloured, manga-styled visuals/panels, 少年-like feel, etc. Still, it's great fun for short bursts. I'll think some more on the version. Really leaning towards the PS3 because I like the controls more, although I like the portability of the 3DS.

Dragon's Dogma would fit here, and it did. It was basically like a more action-oriented, faster paced Demon's Souls (don't ask about Dark Souls, I'm waiting for a better sale on Steam for that). Playing on a certain TV with glare made getting through one of the areas more of a pain than necessary, but it was still fun seeing the pawns doing most of the work while I was running around being an idiot. The fight against the griffon(?) was pretty bad. I didn't know/pay attention to what attacks I had, so the game actually progressed so far in the day that it was dark. Couldn't see a damn thing, ended up dying. At least the archer was someone fun to play as. Couldn't aim to save my life though. Then again, it's not like you had much of a chance to learn how to aim in the first place. Might look into it at some point.

"...":
Biohazard 6 fell here. Mostly because I decided to try Jake and Chris's campaigns first. Big mistake there, as those 2 throw you straight into the fray as soon as the session starts. Leon's starts with some exploration, so that helped with getting used to the controls. Too bad that was while I was eating dinner with a nice little bit of glare from a lamp. Didn't get to any combat, so no further comment. I did get a nice little death scene by running under the Ogroman's legs. He stomped on Piers. Someone should remind me to not do that during the main game... Also did something completely unnecessary, but oh so fun. I sniped a J'avo at short range with the anti-materiel rifle. That was a OHKO~ I'll try playing the demo again soon. Need to focus on other things.

"What the hell is this:"
And the last one. DmC Devil May Cry. This deserves its own post, so I'm giving it one.

Ready to get the party started.

And just when I thought that it wasn't arriving until school started, it shows up at noon (last Thursday)! Second time unlocking everything, so I'm obviously less than enthused at the idea. Or not... Even though I'm unlocking everything really slowly, I'm still having a blast killing lots and lots of Soldier As. I don't even know if I'll be able to do it a third time with the NA version. Too bad it'll be $45CAD (or $40CAD from amazon.ca), which further dampens my enthusiasm. But hey! Can't be as bad as Devil Kings! Really. It can't be.. as bad... *goes into a dim corner because that game seems to have killed the PS2*

Noticed that I can cancel the slash from Mitsunari's 号哭 into pretty much anything. Timing's not exactly strict, but it's pretty easy to input your command a little late. You would actually want to cancel the slash into something because the ending lag is atrocious, unless you follow up with a Sengoku Boost activation or BASARA. Maybe I'll just make another post with all the little tricks that I know. It'll just be for my reference all in one place since I'm pretty sure that other sites will have that information.

Well, managed to do all of Shimazu-don's routes (seriously, the -don part makes me think of food), save for the Honnoji ending because I still haven't unlocked Oichi, Keiji, or really anyone else. This also means that if I have another controller, Shimazu can OHKO while keeping the other character safe from harm. Or I could just use Mitsunari and his crazy slashes of doom on Extreme to rack up a massive hit count for some extra EXP, which should also help with accruing a large ryo count. Still don't have too many of the trophies, and haven't exactly gotten the "No damage" one either. I've gotten "no damage" twice so far, but not during an Emaki run. Don't really know who's the easiest to do it with. Probably Mitsunari at this point in time, or even Yukimura. But he's on Extreme at the moment, and it's gotten somewhat difficult because not having high level weapons. There's also a bunch of random trophies that force you to go out of your way to finish. Not exactly looking forward to it. One involves using on the normal attack string throughout the entire battle. Should really get moving on the other Emaki routes because those are easy trophies that don't really require too much time to deal with. Probably taking longer than usual because I'm trying to get whoever I have up to lv.20 so that they get their first special skill. Ah well, there's still lots of stuff to do in this game! As an aside, Ieyasu's theme occasionally reminds me of "The First Awakening" from LasuRemu. No idea why.

And since I mentioned Devil Kings, might as well say something here.
It killed my PS2. I think the constant loading killed the lens or something with the wiring (leaning towards wiring). It's not booting up certain games anymore, so I'm a little miffed about it. I'll probably just get a new one with Swap Magic since the damn thing's about 7 years old already and seems ready to die as a whole. I could have sworn that SenBasa+2+2H didn't load that constantly on the MUSIC menu. What the hell. Anyways, onto the actual gameplay. I can't believe that when the save loaded, that I've left it mostly untouched. Then I started playing. I can see why I stopped after getting Masa-- I mean Azure Dragon up to lv.19 and a bunch of others to about lv.10. Also couldn't see a damn thing in some of the stages that well because of how dark they were, combined with the dark colour palette the enemies had. I was squinting just to try seeing where they were, and I had the health gauge display on as well. I'll type up some more stuff in a later post. Well probably make more posts on this later on because I do intend to finish the damn game, like I did with SenBASA. Should probably play SenBASA2/2H to completion (mostly done though), along with Battle Heroes because there's apparently some story in there that I might have missed. Namely Ieyasu's transition.



Oh. New DMC game announced. Turns out that the rumours of it being developed by Ninja Theory were right. Someone's asking for death. The reception so far has not been favourable, which is understandable. If you look at the trailer and the screens, there's hardly anything there that represents what DMC is about. And it's being called DmC. That kid is not Dante! If this is what the final product is going to look like, and be the 10th anniversary release, there will be blood. Chances are, he's not going to have something sharp and pointy shoved into his torso in a comedic manner. OK, it wasn't that funny in 3 either, but there was a reason for that.

... I believe I'm going to mimic Kuroda Kanbei's expression of pure despair:

なぜじゃーーっ！！


Now I really have to ask... Will they remember the jump button? I remember Heavenly Sword not having one in the demo, and that really pissed me off. Although the one thing that really pissed me off with this little teaser is "Dante" smoking. I think someone at Capcom said that he was a non-smoker. Don't remember where though... An LJ reply said that it was from an old Kamiya interview (I think I remember reading it), and I have a feeling that little tidbit it was in one of the older novels (which I bought and enjoyed). I want my strawberry sundae loving, white haired pretty boy who playfully insults his enemies back! AND HE DOESN'T SMOKE. This is an insult to the original creation (and by extension, the creator)!

And the music. Holy crap did the music suck. It was painful playing the trailer with the volume on. While the DMC soundtracks were never really that spectacular as a whole (only a few tracks here and there really stood out, but provides very good atmosphere), this is really hitting rock bottom. That track was incredibly obnoxious.

By the way, the reaction on Pixiv is hilarious. Some are drawing the new guy without much of a problem... then follow up with Dante, Nero and/or Vergil beating the crap out of him or not being impressed. Or in one case, Deadpool poking out his eyes (MvC3). That comic even remembered that Dante doesn't smoke, which (I think completely in-character) Deadpool teases him about.

How frustrating.

Oh blazing hell... The multipliers for the 360 version are all over the place. Some of them have +8% and others have +10% at *weapon*+1. That just throws a wrench in almost everything. Bluesteel is definitely following the same route as the PC... As is the Wand/ハードロック. A bunch of others have the +10% route. Unfortunately, there's just not enough info to make a concrete conclusion on the matter. Not even the guides go into it in any sort of depth. What makes it even more frustrating is that getting those upgrades just takes too long. You need to whack something 250~300 times PER upgrade. That's normal attacks, not skills.

Also, the flattest "What" I can muster: Ninja Theory, the guys behind Heavenly Sword, are apparently working on DMC5. Uh... from what I remember, they didn't have a jump button in Heavenly Sword, and the combat was rather slow and clunky when compared to DMC4. And DMC4 was flawed to hell and back. The first one is still, and probably forever will be, my favourite. DMC2 is OK if you just look at it as an action game and not a DMC game. DMC3 was rather... I don't even know. It was good, but completely unbalanced. It's supposed to be hard, but it should be logical and gradual, not "I really want to throw my controller at the TV" hard by the time you get to the 3rd mission. Anyways, that's the newest rumour that's gotten many people a little be unsettled. And I believe that could be an understatement.

That's all for now. I did play something while eating dinner, but it's really nothing to write about. Just playing someone else's file for the hell of it. And wondering about the lack of quests finished. At least I know that Baulson is still up for hire, seeing as his quest is still open despite passing the Nest of Eagles.

Just taking a little break...

Yeah, didn't think that I could get all that up so quickly. Turns out that the assignment I'm working on isn't too bad, for now. Anyways, while browsing around the DMC4 boards (PS3 side, obviously), I happened to see a thread about the novels. I've been curious to see a translation for some time now and someone over at Devil's Lair has done just that. Let's just leave it at "some parts actually make sense, and others? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU GUYS ON?!" Really doubt that the novels will be considered canon, seeing as how nothing seems to make that much sense in terms of a timeline. For some reason, I really like the idea that Nero's DT is his soul literally hanging around him. 

What it stands at right now?
Eva's death, Vergil supposedly dead/disappears-> 9 years to DMC3 manga-> year to DMC3->something or other to DMC1->I don't even know to DMC!anime->16~17(+) years after DMC3 to DMC4 since Nero's about 16~17.
Here's where it might get tricky... Trish, when she breaks Dante's doors with his bike (he doesn't get a break, does he?), she says that he lost his brother (Vergil) and mother 20 years ago. Uh... does she mean 20 years after DMC3 or after the demon attack when they were about 8? Yeah... Best not to think too hard on these things. Besides, the other 2 novels weren't canon! Though, I kinda wished that the DMC1 prequel novel was. It was an interesting read. And whatever happened to Enzo? Ran off to Bayonetta?