Devil May Cry [PS2] + R2VKMF: Polygonal Action Daishingeki

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My issue with those situations is that narrative takes hard-left precedence over mechanical pacing

I don't necessarily disagree with you here depending on how different the characters are, but I think in some instances it's necessary in order to satisfy the needs of the "mass market" so that they don't whine about the game being "repetitive" (which I've never understood; if the core gameplay is fun, wouldn't you want MORE of it usually?).

If the game allows you to unlock a mode where you can play as whoever you want for the whole game after getting your first playthrough out of the way, that strikes me as a good compromise. Appeals to the mass market while the meat and potatoes remains for the serious players. If the game is fun enough you'll be wanting to replay it anyways, and getting a 1st playthrough done to unlock everything is pretty common and generally not overly onerous, in my opinion.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Unrelated: Been playing a bit of DMC3 again and now I totally see where some of the criticisms of that game are coming from. No devil trigger until after Vergil? Bro. That's way too long to wait for such an integral mechanic. Camera angles are fiddly and stages/enemies are rather bland. The need to upgrade styles and weapons for exorbitant prices doesn't help with the game feeling slow-paced. I could grind in level select but I hate that shit. NG Black/Sigma, by contrast, are balanced around fresh save playthroughs without grinding. Which is pretty fucking nice!

Most of my play time with dmc3 was years ago on completed saves where I had everything unlocked. Obviously the game is operating at its maximum fun levels when you play that way. But I have a problem with PAD titles in general locking their best content behind postgame. Another reason to love God Hand, because God Hand is built around fresh save playthroughs, just like NGB.

Back when I still played DMC3 (aka before 4 and 5 made it obsolete ) I settled into playing fresh saves almost exclusively. Problem is fresh Dante is way too weak. DMD enemies are ridiculous damage sponges under these conditions, making every fight against anything tougher than basic Prides drag on forever. Upgrade prices are tuned okay, you're at least pushed to make tough calls about what upgrade to buy. But due to the aforementioned spongey enemies, "what to buy"==Purple Orbs as soon as they become available. The orb rewards for ranking are also too low to meaningfully help you buy upgrades. Styles level so slowly that unless you stick solely to one you're unlikely to see the level 3 abilities at all.

The most fun I had with DMC3 was playing fresh save Bloody Palace, because it has new and exciting enemy groupings and they don't have insanely inflated life bars. Unfortunately it doesn't get good until about halfway through so you're wasting an hour of your own time on every attempt just to get to the cool part. Plus the bosses are random and majority of DMC3's bosses suck, so there's a lot of Lady and Gigapede and Jester and Arkham and just kill me now.

DMC5 has similar Nero-specific problems if you play DMD on a fresh save, although the extra currency you get in the process of unlocking DMD early can be used as a leg up for Nero. And at the very least the enemies have reasonably-sized life bars.

[Lander]

Why is that a bad thing? I will truly never understand why some folks get so buttflustered about being required to play more than one character during the course of a game, or heaven forbid, having certain features only be available during certain stages. One imagines these people shutting off Metal Slug 3 in disgust because they aren't granted the privilege of picking which Slug is available in each stage.

The sense of competence and eventual mastery that arises from the learning process is why I enjoy the genre, so swapping out the curriculum halfway is counter to the wider goal.
Ergo, narrative should capitulate to gameplay, not the other way around. Forced switches in a fully-linear plot are a concession to budget and domain standards, if anything.

And extrapolating out to Metal Slug is nonsense, my man a Slug is a temporary set-piece vehicle whose suite of functionality can be succinctly enumerated in the pre-game button tutorial. The pages-long movelists and training modes of a character action protag are not that.

Couldn't disagree more. Far from replacing the old characters, Viola is defined by her relationship to them. All of her actions and motivations in the story revolve around Bayonetta and Luka, she's a try-hard because she wants to be as good as Bayonetta, and she's comic relief because [spoiler redacted but the answer's pretty obvious]. Also Kamiya already stated that Viola won't replace Cereza in a sequel.

I grok that there's a scrappy successor-in-the-making story in there, thus justifying her various built-in character flaws.
The problem is that it was rushed to fuck and given no time to actually establish her as a likeable underdog; it goes straight to weight-of-the-world without even beginning to outgrow the doof.

And in which case, why go to the effort of [that spoiler that made the internet mad] and [the inky part] if the result is just going to be a Twitter backdown implying none of it mattered?
Wet fart, I judge by what was on the cart they took 5-8 years to sell me. Waiting again on the implication that they might unbreak it is not an appealing idea.

No idea why people act like the ending of Bayo 3 is set in stone when the game literally confirms that the first 3 games all take place in parallel universes and follow different characters. At one point in Bayo 3, Bayonetta spontaneously comes back from the dead without explanation. Stop taking the made-up nonsense plot seriously.

Indeed, why care about anything if entire timelines and stories are freely replaceable by hopping to the next universe over with little to no opportunity cost?
That's the trouble with the Infinite Marvel Multiverse genie; it's not going back in the bottle now it's been let out, and the process of letting it out wasn't nearly impressive enough to justify the cost.

The stories in 1/2 may well be signature nonsense action game plots, but they at least have an appreciable structure; 1 establishes an open time loop paradox, and 2 transmutes it into a closed time loop paradox.
Saying "nah it was just multiverses the whole time" retcons that into so much overdone slurry. So not only is it weak standing alone, it also insists on weakening other, stronger conceits on its way down.

Bayo Origins is just a fun little puzzley action adventure not unlike Okami. Dunno why your knickers are in such a twist over this, feels like you're the one being cynical.

I'm extremely cynical; a regular Yahtzee.

And well, it 'just' being XYZ is rather the point I'm making. There's nothing intrinsic tying Bayo - a top tier character action series - to a fun little puzzley action adventure.
They could have made that with its own cute and fun little character, but Babynetta - ostensibly a closed chapter now the amnesia stuff from 1 is out of the way - is a 'synergistic element that will broaden the appeal of the property' or whatever while simultaneously acting as a vehicle to build out the crap new 3 lore.

WILD_WILD_EAST.png

WTB: Astral Chain: Kaiju Edition

Except I technically did, after it got cancelled by MS and misguidedly incorporated into an unrelated series' trilogy-ender

skill issue
For the record by the way, the most significant changes to Viola in the update were the following: She can now perform perfect blocks slightly after taking damage, the same way Bat Within works, and she can now maintain a sword charge during dodge or block offsets.

Fair cop, I'm not going to git gud with her out of spite
That said, git gud is low-hanging fruit, so I'm still at liberty to call her moveset design out for being a little too thematically resonant with the confused teen aesthetic.

Oh, I'm only a couple missions in. The missions were/are pretty long, so I would get burned out after each one and have to take a break. I'm very tempted to go into stage 1 and just lab it out over and over until the combat stops feeling like total ass.

Oh yeah, I forgot that each mission is essentially feature-length. Bah, almost wrote episode-length there
Labbing is a good shout, though you'll want to push forward to access more of the essential kit if you've already cleaned out the shop.

Unrelated: Been playing a bit of DMC3 again and now I totally see where some of the criticisms of that game are coming from. No devil trigger until after Vergil? Bro. That's way too long to wait for such an integral mechanic. Camera angles are fiddly and stages/enemies are rather bland. The need to upgrade styles and weapons for exorbitant prices doesn't help with the game feeling slow-paced. I could grind in level select but I hate that shit. NG Black/Sigma, by contrast, are balanced around fresh save playthroughs without grinding. Which is pretty fucking nice!

Most of my play time with dmc3 was years ago on completed saves where I had everything unlocked. Obviously the game is operating at its maximum fun levels when you play that way. But I have a problem with PAD titles in general locking their best content behind postgame. Another reason to love God Hand, because God Hand is built around fresh save playthroughs, just like NGB.

I always missed the richness of Mallet Island when running around Temen Ni-Gru. 3 has some great stuff, but it's concentrated in different places than 1's more general sense of atmosphere.

And 3 is one of the few games where I fight the urge to play a fresh save though I find the games that favour it tend to conversely lack options for funning around in post-game campaign. I guess it matters less if I'm not going to engage with that content much long-term, but it would be nice to see games nail both.

I don't necessarily disagree with you here depending on how different the characters are, but I think in some instances it's necessary in order to satisfy the needs of the "mass market" so that they don't whine about the game being "repetitive" (which I've never understood; if the core gameplay is fun, wouldn't you want MORE of it usually?).

If the game allows you to unlock a mode where you can play as whoever you want for the whole game after getting your first playthrough out of the way, that strikes me as a good compromise. Appeals to the mass market while the meat and potatoes remains for the serious players. If the game is fun enough you'll be wanting to replay it anyways, and getting a 1st playthrough done to unlock everything is pretty common and generally not overly onerous, in my opinion.

I tend to hold my critique to higher ideals than business realities idealistic, certainly, but it wouldn't take too much bending to rearrange the expected monolithic N-hour campaign bulletpoint into a more play-friendly paralell structure that still serves a multi-perspective story.
But, working within the conceit, the really important thing is indeed that all the content and mechanics are used to their fullest in spite of whatever compromises have to be made.

[Sima Tuna]

Replaying Bayo 1 on switch reinforced in my mind that I was right to be hard on the game for the QTEs. They're fucking awful. They aren't just "bad QTEs."

They're bad QTEs that:

-don't always follow in-game logic for what buttons should do
-are often hard to see
-give you little time to react (compared to other games)
-kill you if you fail
-ruin your rank on failure

So you could play an entire level perfectly, then fuck up a QTE for any number of reasons and tank your rank at the end. I know it's not a new issue. But I had forgotten just how obnoxious these are. I knew they were bad, but I'd put this in "almost ruins the game for me completely" tier of bad. It's nice you can memo the inputs, but you still might fuck up the timing or just space out and not remember it's there. Which means you die. The porting job to Switch should have included a toggle to remove these from the game. It's a relic of the "QTEs are great" era in which Bayo 1 was developed.

I also have to agree with Mark (msx) that Bayo 1's level design is pretty bad, or at least uneven. The combat is a 10/10 but there are so many timed sections where you have to platform or solve a puzzle. Bleaugh. If the game would let you just fight shit 90%+ of the time then it'd be perfect. Every aspect of the game outside of combat is either mediocre or downright awful.

Speaking of games that let you fight shit, playing Sigma 2 has made me feel the hunger for RAW, UNFILTERED NINJA ACTION, so I booted up some vanilla NG2. Stage 1 of NG2 is so perfect on vanilla. Pure action from start to finish. No gimmicky statue bosses, just a Rasetsu at the end. Who honestly feels like a reprieve, after the wall-to-wall Spider Ninja you've faced to that point. My only complaint about NG2 is you have to wait all the way until level two before you get the claws! A whole entire level!

I know NG2 Vanilla has its own problems (some shitty bosses later in the game,) but damned if it doesn't have perfect pacing in the early stages. U like ninja? Hope you like 2 stages of every ninja variation we can think of! NG2 Vanilla has better costumes too. Biometal with the claws is totally awesome. NG2's violence is beautiful. When you finally clear a room-palms sweating, heart racing-and there's nothing left except total silence and enough caked blood to cover every surface of the level... What do you get? A moment of reprieve. Ryu shakes the blood off his weapon, you save your game, recompose yourself and then dive back in. No gimmicks and no stalling.

I need to look up "no UT clears" of NG Black, Sigma and NG2. Because UT spam is the only aspect of NG I'm not such a fan of. That's one area where Bayo and DMC have Ninja Gaiden beaten. Ninpo and UT as crutch mechanics just aren't as interesting or engaging as their Platinum counterparts.

[Lander]

Replaying Bayo 1 on switch reinforced in my mind that I was right to be hard on the game for the QTEs. They're fucking awful.

Agree. The burning town stage in particular springs to mind; not only does it have the Press Button To Not Die jump midway, it ends on a Spin The Stick To Not Die prompt if memory serves, both of which robbed me of a pure plat at least once.

I think seeing those again was what took the wind out of my PC replay when it got a Steam release - the Platinum Blues making a reprisal from their usual hangout spot near the vents at the start of Mistral's stage in MGR

I also have to agree with Mark (msx) that Bayo 1's level design is pretty bad, or at least uneven. The combat is a 10/10 but there are so many timed sections where you have to platform or solve a puzzle. Bleaugh. If the game would let you just fight shit 90%+ of the time then it'd be perfect. Every aspect of the game outside of combat is either mediocre or downright awful.

I don't remember actively disliking it that much outside of the QTEs, but some of the secrets were certainly kind of shitty.

And as puzzles go, give me DMC1 lock-and-key any day. It may be simple, but it's more time running around fighting, and does more for the world than the fluffy puzzle-lite setpieces favoured by more modern stuff. Provided that the locks and keys themselves are suitably interesting of course - DMC5 missed the point a bit making them all that same little gribbly creature.

When you finally clear a room-palms sweating, heart racing-and there's nothing left except total silence and enough caked blood to cover every surface of the level... What do you get? A moment of reprieve. Ryu shakes the blood off his weapon, you save your game, recompose yourself and then dive back in. No gimmicks and no stalling.

Ooh yeah brother, that's the RAW, UNREFINED, edge-of-your-seat NINJA ACTION right there
"Die slower than your enemies", as a wise man once said.

And I love the weapon-flick denoument. Pound-for-pound one of the coolest moves in the game, does no damage, and you input it by doing nothing

I need to look up "no UT clears" of NG Black, Sigma and NG2. Because UT spam is the only aspect of NG I'm not such a fan of. That's one area where Bayo and DMC have Ninja Gaiden beaten. Ninpo and UT as crutch mechanics just aren't as interesting or engaging as their Platinum counterparts.

JayTB is an excellent source for top-tier commentated NG04 / Black / Sigma / 2 play. Pick a challenge run out of a hat, and he probably has a playlist of it.

[NYN]

I am now more crazy about Dino Crisis 2 as some 20 years ago. Playing more like a spin-off then a sequel, it's clear that the adventure-wheel didn't make into this hot rod. Which forms some kind of Identity Dino Crisis, though when it's this much fun I don't mind and care. What I find most fun is that it's the last stand for the Biohazard/Resident Evil-type controls and pre-rendered angles and the way it's tweaked to please is quite lovely. There is a designated evade button now. I realize many players then found them dated very fast, or never liked them, or would never play them again. Not me though. This game is fast and shooting things at this point in 2000 with the CAPCOM flavour is very distinct to me. Yes, there are some shortcomings and faults, due to the fast production to catch the tail end of PS0ne end days. Nevertheless I cannot help but riding high on this raw safari hunt. Starting with a [100 shots] pump-action as base firearm, using one's own playstyle to score, milking points, reaching the sweet N0 DAMAGE bonus, firing twin SMG while moving, driving a tank and shooting it, manning first-person turrets as interlude, coaxing creatures to own advantages, going underwater for the horror to slow down the pace of the hunt and gain the ability to jump: if this is all a mistake I don't want to be right anymore.

I just learned today by playing that when a bleeding after a chance attack isn't dressed, the player character does not just bleed out. No. Down to 1HP, it only attracts insect buzzers to pick the hide. But they don't kill, then. They just keep poking, by that messing up movement and shots, so not only is it dangerous to run around at 1HP, it messes up the scoring. That's so rad (dated, what's the 2000 synonym? Bitchin' ?). Didn't know that.

A Normal 1Life/No Save run is fairly easy for any player who knows to score and adapt the various weapons to the multitude of critters. Hard Mode is where the hard action is, for it demands to score right and with N0 DAMAGE bonus due to the hard recession of Extinct Points. Don't conserve ammo, shoot straight for points. Haven't made the 1Life on Hard clear yet, but I have an excuse: I didn't get to play it for maybe 15 years. It only grew in my estimation in the meantime. The fun is now.

[Squire Grooktook]

I actually enjoy Bayo 1's level design decently. Anyone who knows my tastes knows I'm not a big fan of the series (or Platinum, in general) combat design, but I really do adore the first games pacing. I also feel that - out of the majority of games of this type - very few of them made platforming feel as natural and fluid as Bayo (going from dmc's stiff heavily vertical jump that was clearly designed purely for combat to Bayo's flowery floaty leaps is night and day) which made the variety in Bayo's level design a huge part of its charm for me.

Granted, this is coming from someone who dislikes the core combat mechanics enough to not have any desire to Pure Platinum all the stages, so this is a very CASUL perspective and I cannot comment on the frustrations that might emerge when playing the game at a higher level.

Indeed, why care about anything if entire timelines and stories are freely replaceable by hopping to the next universe over with little to no opportunity cost?
That's the trouble with the Infinite Marvel Multiverse genie; it's not going back in the bottle now it's been let out, and the process of letting it out wasn't nearly impressive enough to justify the cost.

The stories in 1/2 may well be signature nonsense action game plots, but they at least have an appreciable structure; 1 establishes an open time loop paradox, and 2 transmutes it into a closed time loop paradox.
Saying "nah it was just multiverses the whole time" retcons that into so much overdone slurry. So not only is it weak standing alone, it also insists on weakening other, stronger conceits on its way down.

What bugs me the most is that Bayo 1 and 2 had a very clear, very simple, and very effective cosmology that was woven into the story, gameplay, aesthetics and central themes.

Three worlds. Heaven, Hell, and Earth. That's all, there are no other worlds beyond those. That's everything there is, and everything in the games revolved around this central conceit. Then the third game tosses that all out and shits all over it because...I guess somewhere in the 8 year development process someone watched a Marvel movie and screamed with a soyjak face "WE SHOULD DO THAT!!!!!!"

[Volteccer_Jack]

What bugs me the most is that Bayo 1 and 2 had a very clear, very simple, and very effective cosmology that was woven into the story, gameplay, aesthetics and central themes.

Three worlds. Heaven, Hell, and Earth. That's all, there are no other worlds beyond those. That's everything there is, and everything in the games revolved around this central conceit. Then the third game tosses that all out and shits all over it because...I guess somewhere in the 8 year development process someone watched a Marvel movie and screamed with a soyjak face "WE SHOULD DO THAT!!!!!!"

Bayonetta 3 doesn't change any of that. It's explicitly stated that the 'multiverse' shtick only exists in the human realm, because the human realm is the realm of chaos. There are many variations of Earth but only one Paradiso and one Inferno. Why do I get the impression that people who are upset about Bayo 3's plot didn't actually pay attention to it?

why care about anything if entire timelines and stories are freely replaceable by hopping to the next universe over with little to no opportunity cost?

Why care about anything if time travel can just undo it entirely at any time? If you want me to take your position seriously, you need to explain to me why a time loop paradox (a concept that by definition doesn't make sense) is a more reasonable plot device than an alternate timeline.

[Squire Grooktook]

It's explicitly stated that the 'multiverse' shtick only exists in the human realm

>it's okay! There are only infinite parallel versions of the only part that has actual characters!!

You...you...you do realize that...doesn't make it better, right?

Right??

[Lander]

Bayonetta 3 doesn't change any of that. It's explicitly stated that the 'multiverse' shtick only exists in the human realm, because the human realm is the realm of chaos. There are many variations of Earth but only one Paradiso and one Inferno.

Aside from taking it from an elegant Trinity of Realities to a Trinfinity-ish of Realities with heavy bias by majority toward The Human World. The cosmic couch only has so much extra room for Inferno and Paradiso to scooch up.

Why do I get the impression that people who are upset about Bayo 3's plot didn't actually pay attention to it?

Because it's less effort to eyeroll and assume a viewpoint is born of incompetence than it is to give it serious consideration?

Why care about anything if time travel can just undo it entirely at any time? If you want me to take your position seriously, you need to explain to me why a time loop paradox (a concept that by definition doesn't make sense) is a more reasonable plot device than an alternate timeline.

Rewriting history via time travel is an orthogonal concept to a time loop. One deals in mutability, the other in structure.
The former may cause the latter - i.e. you have to cut the paper and glue it back twisted to get an impossible mobius strip - but in and of itself a time loop is not concerned with the cause-and-effect that can be used to mess around with established events.
More to the point, Bayo never used mutable time travel as an excuse to snap a baggage-free new state of things into being, so there's no point of comparison; all the cutting and sticking was designed in.

But to indulge the argument, neither of these fantastical concepts is innately reasonable, and both can be done poorly or used as a crutch. Multiverse just happens to be on-trend in recent times.

[Sumez]

I'm playing DMC3 again, for the first time since... before Special Edition came out.
Someone help me enjoy it.

I mean... it's not that I'm not enjoying it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not enjoying it for what the game's dedicated fans see in it. And when I see someone really good at the game playing, I honestly have no idea what it is they are doing. The combat is so messy and confusing, and it always appears like people are just standing in place and mashing attack while everything dies around them. In a lot of ways I'd write the game off as "not for me" for a number of reasons I could easily outline, but obviously I want to give the game a chance to be appreciated on its own merits, and not try to meld it into mine.


To give a brief indication of where I'm at - I've played a short while into the game, enough to potentially get into the meat of it, recently acquiring Agni & Rudra. I'm not having much trouble progressing so far - a few enemies do frustrate me a bit, namely the flying blood spirit things that multiply, but survival isn't my focus here as much as just clicking with the combat in general. I'm playing "Yellow" because I want to git gud to progress, and not just scrape by via brute force.
I've settled on "Swordmaster" style, since Trickster as I've had confirmed seems to mostly be at odds with the primary defensive systems of the game which rely on abusing the iframes of jumping and rolling. Swordmaster and Royal Guard are clearly the styles primarily intended to extend the movement scheme into something that blends well with the game, and the latter seems to be designed mostly around experts who are already very familiar with enemy movesets - either way I usually never enjoy timed parries in action games, so Swordmaster seems more up my alley.

I'm trying to get used to the various moves, especially relying on Stinger and High Time to manage my mobility while keeping combos going. I have a fair idea of most of the theory, like which moves do what, and how the combo system rewards switching them up. I just don't really have any inherent feel for what makes any single of the options I have the superior choice given any single situation. Also the lock-on still feels extremely unwieldly to me, but it's required for most of the moves you can do.
I know a big part of the game is basically unlocking everything so you have every move, weapon and option from the start, and then replaying it for 100 hours on increasing difficulty settings, and I'm sure I'd get it eventually that way. But I also know that if I just focus on playing conservely to survive until the end of Normal Mode and never manage to click with the system in that time, then I'm also just going to leave it behind and never give it another thought. So I guess I'm looking for things I should know or attempt to do in order to hopefully get on the right track before I get there

[Sima Tuna]

I'm playing DMC3 again, for the first time since... before Special Edition came out.
Someone help me enjoy it.

I mean... it's not that I'm not enjoying it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not enjoying it for what the game's dedicated fans see in it. And when I see someone really good at the game playing, I honestly have no idea what it is they are doing. The combat is so messy and confusing, and it always appears like people are just standing in place and mashing attack while everything dies around them. In a lot of ways I'd write the game off as "not for me" for a number of reasons I could easily outline, but obviously I want to give the game a chance to be appreciated on its own merits, and not try to meld it into mine.


To give a brief indication of where I'm at - I've played a short while into the game, enough to potentially get into the meat of it, recently acquiring Agni & Rudra. I'm not having much trouble progressing so far - a few enemies do frustrate me a bit, namely the flying blood spirit things that multiply, but survival isn't my focus here as much as just clicking with the combat in general. I'm playing "Yellow" because I want to git gud to progress, and not just scrape by via brute force.
I've settled on "Swordmaster" style, since Trickster as I've had confirmed seems to mostly be at odds with the primary defensive systems of the game which rely on abusing the iframes of jumping and rolling. Swordmaster and Royal Guard are clearly the styles primarily intended to extend the movement scheme into something that blends well with the game, and the latter seems to be designed mostly around experts who are already very familiar with enemy movesets - either way I usually never enjoy timed parries in action games, so Swordmaster seems more up my alley.

I'm trying to get used to the various moves, especially relying on Stinger and High Time to manage my mobility while keeping combos going. I have a fair idea of most of the theory, like which moves do what, and how the combo system rewards switching them up. I just don't really have any inherent feel for what makes any single of the options I have the superior choice given any single situation. Also the lock-on still feels extremely unwieldly to me, but it's required for most of the moves you can do.
I know a big part of the game is basically unlocking everything so you have every move, weapon and option from the start, and then replaying it for 100 hours on increasing difficulty settings, and I'm sure I'd get it eventually that way. But I also know that if I just focus on playing conservely to survive until the end of Normal Mode and never manage to click with the system in that time, then I'm also just going to leave it behind and never give it another thought. So I guess I'm looking for things I should know or attempt to do in order to hopefully get on the right track before I get there

First off, Trickster is not at odds with the system of abusing i-frames. The best, most abusable i-frame spamming move is only usable when in Trickster. That being the air dash. Instant air dashing provides a fuckton of i-frames and basically makes it impossible for you to take damage. It's a very reliable way of waiting out boss patterns or zipping through a web of offense. The standard ground dash sucks dick most of the time, but you don't use it. The wall run isn't bad. It's not NG Black levels of useful but you can do some stuff off it. And of course, there's the teleport, which opens up all kinds of options for chain combo shenanigans. The main one I know is teleporting into Helm Breaker or Killer Bee. Personally, I think instant air dash into killer bee or helm breaker is better. I don't think Swordmaster relies on learning enemy movesets any more than Gunslinger does. You can use a lot of the extended moves in those styles to stunlock enemies before they even do anything. But you lose out on mobility (Trickster) and defensive tools (Royal Guard) in exchange.

RG timing probably isn't TOO bad, but I never bothered to learn it.

Trickster is the only style I play seriously. I've fooled around with Swordmaster (you can use the Rebellion throw to knock Beowulf's cages back, shit like that) and Quicksilver (because it's op,) but Trickster is what I like.

I mentioned I went back to it a while back and I can definitely see some of its problems now. The game, imo, takes way too long to give you all its toys. It's probably worse than Bayonetta on that score. Level 7 before devil trigger unlocks? Bullshit. Imagine playing 7 levels before Gene got the God Hand, or 7 levels before mario unlocked the ability to pick up a fire flower. They're not short levels either.

Enemies are pretty whatever, yeah. The little demon dudes all have a gimmick but it's painfully obvious what that is and what you should counter with. Except the red flying bats, which are kinda bullshit. You have to know what to do, otherwise they're a nightmare. See, if you fight the bats correctly, they should never, ever split. They only split when you attack them in the Not-Approved fashion. Hit them with slashing damage/a melee weapon and they split. Hit them with the shotgun or pistols and they turn to stone. Kind of a shitty enemy though, because they're never alone. The game likes to spam them in rooms with other enemies, so any errant swing at those other foes is likely to hit a bat and cause it to split. Obnoxious.

DMC3 may be the first character action game with Platinum Syndrome (that the game is most fun when you're on NG+.) I can't think of any others made before that built for subsequent playthroughs the same way. I didn't play THAT much DMC 1 (it's on my to-do,) but what I did play felt balanced for a fresh save file. I think devil trigger was obtained in the first couple of missions (as it should be.) God Hand, Viewtiful Joe, Okami and the other Clover titles are designed around New Game. Ninja Gaiden definitely is.

Yeah, I realized a while ago that's an aspect of Kamiya's games that I do not enjoy. I prefer the game to operate at Maximum Fun Values on a fresh save file. All I can tells ya is DMC3 will get more fun as you play further and unlock more of "the gameplay." Just don't bother with Heaven or Hell difficulty because that shit is boring as sin.

[Lethe]

I don't really get what you're asking re: not clicking with the combat. The flow is "do the thing and cancel into the other thing". Instead of hitting AAA you go AA -> launcher -> mash shoot -> held launcher -> air rave -> helmbreaker -> stinger... etc. In DMC3 the skeleton of the moveset is shared by every weapon except Cerberus.

It's not a strategy game where you think about what the "superior" option is. It's all specific, situational little properties. Maybe I'll do combo 2 instead of combo 1 because the hitbox will tag that guy walking up behind me. Arguably the preeminent failing of the game is how the enemy design makes weak attempts to push it towards being more strategic (philosophically closer to DMC1 or NGBlack) but the player's toolkit is pushing in the opposite direction where you smash buttons a lot and juggle everything, so those enemies wind up simply tedious.

And yeah, it takes nearly a full playthough to get one style maxed out. Royal Guard is the most usable without extra levels.

E:

Imagine playing 7 levels before Gene got the God Hand

Going by the cutscene it might have been originally intended to be locked until Elvis. Which isn't a terrible idea, actually, besides losing the 99% of players who would simply give up before then.

[Sumez]

It's not a strategy game where you think about what the "superior" option is. It's all specific, situational little properties. Maybe I'll do combo 2 instead of combo 1 because the hitbox will tag that guy walking up behind me.

That's exactly what I'm talking about though. Not sure what that has to do with strategy games. Picking the optimal thing to do out of an available set of options given the current situation is exactly what an action game is about.
It's a good example too, because I have zero clue what the difference between Combo 1 and Combo 2 is and why I'd go with one over the other - or how I'd even make such a decision while already trying to push all the buttons required of me. It's very difficult to not just mash.

The lack of actually useful resources on this game (or at least ones possible to dig up via google) is kinda staggering, it's as if everyone is just either assuming that everyone else is already super into all the weird obscure details about it, or just need help to scrub their way through.

[Mortificator]

God Hand is a weird one, because it feels better starting from a clear save, yet doesn't actually have a new game plus. Nothing carries over. You simply get better monetary rewards so you have less reason to engage with the terrible interstage gambling and are no longer gatekept in the shop and fighting ring. Oh, and there are some OP moves for sale if you REALLY want to cruise through.

Of course, I agree 1000% about DMC3 being more fun when you have the full arsenal. I don't think I've done a fresh playthrough since my first one way back when. It really shows the wrongheadedness of RPG shit in action games, and as much as I love Devil May Cry, it did a lot to popularize that.

[Lethe]

That's exactly what I'm talking about though. Not sure what that has to do with strategy games. Picking the optimal thing to do out of an available set of options given the current situation is exactly what an action game is about.
It's a good example too, because I have zero clue what the difference between Combo 1 and Combo 2 is and why I'd go with one over the other - or how I'd even make such a decision while already trying to push all the buttons required of me. It's very difficult to not just mash.

The lack of actually useful resources on this game (or at least ones possible to dig up via google) is kinda staggering, it's as if everyone is just either assuming that everyone else is already super into all the weird obscure details about it, or just need help to scrub their way through.

There is a movelist in game in one of the pause menus and undoubtedly many other movelists online. I remember them being on GameFAQs.

Not to continue being an ass about this, but beyond knowing what the controls/moves are, it's really just something you play and find out intuitively about what's going to work where. Does anyone actually play this subgenre any other way?

[Lander]

I'm playing DMC3 again, for the first time since... before Special Edition came out.
Someone help me enjoy it.

For a fresh save, pick a style and two devil arms and stick with them to avoid spreading your red orbs / EXP out too much. Don't bother with gun upgrades, since the minor damage buff isn't worth it versus new moves.
Rebellion is a shoo-in since it's good all round, so I'd probably stick with Cerberus; relatively low damage, but it has a high hit count and more immediately useful tools; Revolver is a great jump-cancelable combo tool (RB + >Y, A, repeat), and its Crazy Combo (mash Y during Cerberus Combo II with a high style meter) is primo crowd control. Beowulf is top but comes too late, Nevan is weird enough to dedicate a playthrough to, and A&R are somewhat outmoded by Rebellion until later upgrades.

I'd recommend looking up the secret mission locations, since a lot of them are fiendishly hidden and help save on buying blue orbs, though a few aren't clearable until you have a specific move.
Purple orbs aren't super important early on, since DT is a constantly renewable resource via taunts. Green orb drops from enemies are a more effective heal, and having a maxed bar is primarily helpful for one-cycling bosses or using the chargeable explosion to wipe hard waves on higher difficulties.

Style-wise, Swordmaster is respectable, since maximizing your moveset is key while you're still on the upgrade treadmill; mastering jump and roll canceling is a more important fundament than the extras you get with Trickster / Royalguard, as familiarity with the timing gives you an immediate just-switch-button leg up when you start messing with them, and knowing the tricks can make up for the moves you lose when not playing Swordmaster. Gunslinger is alright, but only really starts to make sense when you install the Style Switcher mod.

Speaking of jump canceling, if the players you see are standing in place with everything dying around them, they're probably Royalguard masters and not representative of pre-hour-100 play.
Canceling everything, hopping off enemy heads, and generally being all over the bloody place is the core of the game until that point

It's a good example too, because I have zero clue what the difference between Combo 1 and Combo 2 is and why I'd go with one over the other - or how I'd even make such a decision while already trying to push all the buttons required of me. It's very difficult to not just mash.

A good universally applicable reason is because switching up moves boosts the style meter faster, which will naturally teach you what moves do what through repeat exposure.
Mechanically, Combo I tends to be a traditional single-target one-two-three-etc with escalating damage, whereas Combo II will be something more elaborate with more hits and / or other utility properties like crowd control.

[Sima Tuna]

Well, some action games do have "can opener" game design, where x move is specifically built to counter x enemy. Like, the game might have an enemy who blocks a lot, and then they give you a move with trash frame data that will guardbreak. I don't know exactly if that's what Sumez mean. The flying blood gargoyles work that way (unfortunately). I tend to think of that design as rather lazy though. Character action games that I like are usually not so simplistic.

If Sumez wants to know what optimal play looks like, all I can suggest is to watch some videos. Not combo videos, but no-death runs or hitless runs. And not on DMD or HOH. DMD is a hellscape of artificially-inflated lifebars and HOH is a meme. While it does certainly take skill to avoid damage while whittling away an endless lifebar, I don't think it's a fair representation of how the normal game is played.

What's the point of combo 1 vs combo 2? Depends on the weapon, dunnit? Rebellion's combo 2 is slower than combo 1 IIRC, and it give you an extra hit. Combo 1 is what I take for efficiency and Combo 2 is what I go with when I'm 1vs1 and have time to style. Or if I want to change up my attack tempo to prevent certain behaviors from the enemy. Now, my main weapon is Beowulf. Combo 1 vs Combo 2 is very different when using Beowulf. Combo 1 is a standard fast 3 hits. Combo 2 is an "ora ora ora" kick combo. Both have their use cases. But combo 2 is so slow that you really need to lock in your direction and threat angles before you commit to it. Beowulf also has charge modifiers which further allow you to alter the timing and damage of your swings.

Sticking to two weapons is a good idea. I will always recommend Beowulf, every time. Unfortunately, it's not available until fairly late. Rebellion/Beowulf or Cerberus/Beowulf is my optimal setup. Shotgun/Pistol or Kalina Anne/Pistol for guns. Cancels into rockets/shotgun blasts are very nice for crowd control. I've heard people shit on Cerberus in the past, but it's a solid tool for crowd control or focused damage.

[Lethe]

Let me try rephrasing what I mean about it not being a strategy game because I suspect that's where we're having a disconnect. This is not a game that you should attempt to solve. "Optimal" DMC3 play typically involves picking Royal Guard and hiding in the corner while spamming rockets or rifle shots, or using DT flux to blow up the entire screen instantly while getting a free SSS rank, or doing jump cancel loops over and over again. To continue the God Hand comparison, "optimal" GH play likewise means high side kick into high side kick into high side kick, or running around in circles taunting or doing Chain Yanker -> YMK over and over so you never have to attack without meter. It's fucking dumb, and the only people who actually want to play like that are speedrunners.

DMC (DMC1 excepted) isn't a survival game series, it's not a scoring game series either. It's a toybox and spectacle, a make-your-own-fun. I know from personal experience that attempting to analyze it and peel it apart only leads to being disappointed at how weak its constituent parts are. Most of the advice given above boils down to "I like this, here's how to do this cool thing", among the 57 million other potential cool things you could do. That's what the game is about.

[Squire Grooktook]

Talking about "optimal play" in Devil May Cry feels like it's kind of missing the point of the game.

Like yeah, there's a ranking system to learn and that takes some effort to get good at, but you're meant to go beyond it. The fundamental "don't repeat moves" scoring mechanic is as much an actual mechanic as a philosophy that extends beyond the game itself.

And yeah, it's not Musou-tier punching bag fantasy easy but it's not that hard to beat if you're familiar with action games. Enemies have slow, telegraphed winds up and Dante can run circles around them. Some bosses have tricky patterns to learn and some crowd fights on higher difficulties can get hectic but that's as hard as it gets. You really don't need to "optimize" the game, if you want a game where survival requires incredible reflexes, strategy, and optimization of the scenario, play Ninja Gaiden.

Devil May Cry is about looking cool. The challenge is not to survive, it's to do it while looking cool. First you learn to beat the game, then you learn how to be at SSS Rank at all times, and then you improvise. "Optimal" play of Devil May Cry is about creating your own action movie setpieces, pulling off stunts that aren't technically graded but look cool to you and are challenging and satisfying to do. It's the only game series where a shitty useless move is actually invaluable because it's bad: because pulling it off in a cool way is one more crazy stunt you can challenge yourself to in order to show what a cocky badass you are.

That's why it has a replayability and depth that no shmup score attack could ever hope to match.

*edit*

fuck Lethe beat me to it. Also well said.

[Sumez]

(...)

Thanks a lot! At last a post that's actually able to offer a lot of helpful insight, this is the kind of stuff I was looking for! I'd be happy to hear some more nuggets if you got them.

Talking about "optimal play" in Devil May Cry feels like it's kind of missing the point of the game.

I'm not sure I did at any point. I talked about understanding it systems and learning how to enjoy it. I mean I guess that's optimal, but it can't be wrong either.

Let me try rephrasing what I mean about it not being a strategy game because I suspect that's where we're having a disconnect. This is not a game that you should attempt to solve. "Optimal" DMC3 play typically involves picking Royal Guard and hiding in the corner while spamming rockets or rifle shots, or using DT flux to blow up the entire screen instantly while getting a free SSS rank, or doing jump cancel loops over and over again.

I spent the entirety of my first post trying to explain that yeah, I'm not trying to "solve" the game. I'm not trying to figure out how to "win", and I'm definitely not looking for "can opener" solutiosn. I'm trying to figure out how to improve my enjoyment of it, and few people really seem willing and/or able to provide a primer on how to get into this approach to the game.
Apparently I could have phased it better, but I'm not really sure how.

[Squire Grooktook]

I'm not sure I did at any point. I talked about understanding it systems and learning how to enjoy it. I mean I guess that's optimal, but it can't be wrong either.

Sorry I wasn't quite responding to you, more just several posts made in the interim that were peeling apart the movesets as if the game was a super tactical affair.

Anyway on the actual subject of DMC3, the game (in comparison to 4 and 5) opens up a lot slower on a fresh save. The main conceit of the game is as said "don't repeat moves", and I think it does a good job of teaching that with the gradual unfolding of its moveset and weapon selection. Each new weapon you get is a new opportunity to crank style ranking farther by having a new button in your arsenal to press when you can.

General random tips and tricks off the top of my head.

>Jumps have a lot of i-frames if you didn't know. I generally find jumping to avoid attacks a little less awkward than rolling, though rolls are probably safer overall. Trickster dashes beats either one though obviously.
>Stinger and equivalent moves is good for closing distance but knocks opponents away so throwing it out midscreen frequently can make you look uncool. It's nice near a wall since you can keep your beatdown going. If you have TWO weapons with stinger equipped, you can actually chain them together with weapon switching, continuously closing the distance towards foes.
>Weapon switching is the big deal for combos and style. Learn to switch weapons mid combo
>Guns are for keeping style ranking up while at a distance, though they also have use in juggling. Taunts can do the same but without the damage.
>Trickster might seem lame but the ultimate skill it gives you is a teleport which is absolutely fucking insane for mobility and always being on top of everyone all the time
>I can't remember if it's a skill you have to buy in dmc3 but the move that lets you do another jump off of enemies heads is secretly one of the most important for combos. IE an easy example of learning how insane it is is with Beowulfs dive kick, you can instantly chain it by jump cancelling as soon as you hit.
>There are not a lot of moves with i-frames in the game but the ones that do are pretty fun. IE Ice Age

Gunslinger is alright, but only really starts to make sense when you install the Style Switcher mod.

Worth noting, but the Switch version of the game makes the Style Switcher mod canon as a new gameplay mode officially included. It's fun to mess around with, though I do enjoy the "tightness" of style committed dmc3 too.

[Sima Tuna]

If you're asking how to have more fun playing the game, the real answer is "keep playing it and it will become more fun after all your shit unlocks."

Probably my biggest criticism of DMC3 at this point is how awful it feels to play on a fresh save. When you know what's possible, going back to the levels 1-7 new game systems feels like fighting deaf and blind. My main weapon doesn't unlock until Mission 14.

[Lander]

More nuggets, eh? I can probably think of one or two!

Train yourself to switch weapons a lot - there are many moves that link into each other between movesets, and ground strings tend to cancel into one another across weapons and let you combo forever with no recovery time.

For purposes of combo variety / style meter gain, you should consider taunt as a move in its own right - it's subject to the same point proration as everything else, so should be used frequently to keep your DT resource gain going. Since everything is so cancelable, this puts the onus on the player plan in big-bang string enders that create safety for a taunt, rather than relying exclusively on smaller safer moves.

It's good to have a few reliable bread-and-butter strings committed to memory that can be used as filler to buy thinking time and plan your next stylish combo, since there comes a point where attack and defense become muscle memory and your brain is freed up to think about the broader strokes. It's good to get into the habit of separating your immediate hit-this-guy-jump-cancel-helm-breaker-roll-cancel-stinger-etc stream of consciousness from the wider how-will-i-beat-this-encounter strategizing.

On proration, you've probably noted that repeated moves give less style; once familiarized with, figuring out 'profitable' sources of style gain becomes a key factor; i.e. how many times you can weave in a given move in a short timeframe, how long the window is before a move is reset to full value, ways to traverse the combo tree while visiting each move as infrequently as possible, etc.

That last part is an interesting point of contention among players; some see the game as a means of self-expression, rejecting the idea of 'gaming the system' as an uncreative pop-music idea that misses the point of freestyle, where the opposite end of the spectrum is all about making big combo into a science.

No surprise then, that the latter camp would be the one to pull an Oppenheimer and discover that the most stylish things the game understands are aggressive bunnyhopping, parry farming, and bunkering down with the biggest gun available personally I'm somewhere in between; value freestyle, but don't reject hard facts if they can augment the creative side of it.

A few more specific tricks:

Double-launching with High Time (No Hold) > High Time (Hold), or Prop > High Time (Hold) is great for frontloading a bit of extra height with Rebellion, and something I wish I'd figured out sooner. It opens up various new options, like following with a teleport for extended air combo, landing early to start up a big AoE like Ice Age, or just buying some safety time for a taunt.

While in the air, switching to Cerberus midair to do Swing and / or Revolver > Enemy Step, and then back to whatever else for an Aerial Rave is a nice easy way to stay in the sky. And you can infinitely loop falling moves like Rebellion's Helm Breaker or Beowulf's Killer Bee by canceling them into Enemy Step, though the timing and positioning take some practice. Great for deleting certain annoying tanky enemies later in the game!

Worth noting, but the Switch version of the game makes the Style Switcher mod canon as a new gameplay mode officially included. It's fun to mess around with, though I do enjoy the "tightness" of style committed dmc3 too.

Oh yeah, I recall hearing about that - Free Style mode or something? Nice that it got an official implementation, since iirc switching was part of the original design but got binned due to memory constraints.

Though these days the mod has outgrown the original vision to the point where it's become Devil May Cry 3: Ultimate When's Mahvel Multiplayer Tag Edition; weapon wheel, character switching, restored prototype moves, the full treatment.

Funny really, I remember hating switching when 4 turned Dante into the esoteric masters-only character, and thinking it was a big mistake to double down for 5 instead of coming back down to fundamentals. These days I can barely get by without it

[BIL]

I love this thread Someday I too will contribute

(EDIT: actually fucc I can still spruce up teh OP so its liek scrolling action thread )

[Sumez]

Finished DMC3, and played a bit more of it on Hard mode. As expected, I never got to the point where the combat really clicked, but I do want to return to the game and get really into it. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that that will ever happen. Not enough hours in a day, sadly. And even if I did, I'm not sure I'd be able to stomach any more of that terrible combat music playing over every. single. encounter in the entire game.

>Weapon switching is the big deal for combos and style. Learn to switch weapons mid combo

Train yourself to switch weapons a lot - there are many moves that link into each other between movesets, and ground strings tend to cancel into one another across weapons and let you combo forever with no recovery time.

Ironically, I think the one thing that helped me gel better with the game was actually deciding on focusing on just the sword. I'd occasionally try to switch to a different weapon mid-combo just for the sake of style points (or the increased damage output of Beowulf), but ultimately it rarely worked like I wanted, and I had a better time getting intimately familiar with the moveset of one weapon at a time, rather than trying to bite off more than I could eat. Cerberus did help out a few boss fights though.

>Trickster might seem lame but the ultimate skill it gives you is a teleport which is absolutely fucking insane for mobility and always being on top of everyone all the time

I should elaborate my statement regarding Trickster. Basically I didn't want to get complacent with the added dodging abilities before I had an intuitive feeling for the game's core dodging methods available in either style (jumping and rolling). Ultimately switching temporarily to Trickster definitely helped me with a few boss fights, I'm not sure how on earth you're even supposed to avoid Beowulf's white ground pound thing without it!
I don't think Swordmaster ever did a lot for me either. Some of the skills it adds to the other weapons are really cool, but the ones you get with Rebellion didn't seem to do much for me, so I mostly used it to expand my alternating move repetoire, and the occasional air combo (which doesn't seem to be possible without it?).

On proration, you've probably noted that repeated moves give less style; once familiarized with, figuring out 'profitable' sources of style gain becomes a key factor; i.e. how many times you can weave in a given move in a short timeframe, how long the window is before a move is reset to full value, ways to traverse the combo tree while visiting each move as infrequently as possible, etc.

Although I got a taste of it, and managed to hit SSS ever so often, I think there's still something I'm missing with the combat system.
I'm not a fan of the "punch-punch-PAUSE-punch" style combo variation, since it seems impossible for me to ever have an inherent feel of what point I even am at in a combo, especially when I start stringing together different moves, or just mash the button to get attacks out. It's not like Dante swings his sword exactly on the button press, and many single attacks result in multiple visible strikes, so that aspect never felt intuitive to me.
I did employ it when trying to break the "combat adjucator" statues, and I think a good example of me missing something is the one on Mission 7 that requires you to break it with your default sword, which I was never able to do.
I'd go through my moves as a shopping list, with level 3 Swordmaster moves weaved in - Stinger->Square button->High time->Square button->Help splitter->Back+square->Combo A->Forward square->Combo B, or something to that degree, but it wasn't enough to get the meter higher than SS.

I found the controls cumbersome too. Weapon switching never stopped feeling unintuitive to me, and I was often uncertain which of my weaposn I actually had equipped at any moment. The melee weapon switch button is located really unfortunately, making it hard to just switch over while doing other things. I tried putting it on a left shoulder button instead, but the visual UI showing guns on the left and "swords" on the right just made it feel more unintuitive.
I'd also never rely on High Time enough to just send a bunch of enemies into the air consecutively like you describe. Pretty much every move that requires pushing away from an enemy while pressing another button just never felt completely reliable to me, with the exact directions being difficult to hit provided I'd even lock on to the correct enemy. Funny enough, I never had that issue with moves that require pushing towards enemies (Stinger).

Overall though I really liked the game. I had a lot of fun just keeping a combo going while avoiding damage, and trying to master the boss fights. I can tell there's something there with a lot of meat on it, even if I'll never manage to get to the point myself.


I gave Bayonetta a short try immediately after (another game that's been sitting on my shelf since release), and it's interesting to compare the two. Just the fact that it's not a PS2 game seems to be enough to make it feel smoother, but the controls also pretty much fix every issue I had with DMC3's. No button is out of the way, the weapon switching is less prevalent and thus less clunky, and I seem to be able to do more of the stuff I need without having to lock on to an enemy. The dedicated dodge button feels a lot better, but ultimately it's probably also the one thing I really like less about it. It seems a little to easy to dodge enemy attacks by just dashing in any direction at the right moment, and nearly any move can be canceled into a dodge. Having to properly fit a jump into your string of moves in DMC3 felt a lot more like skilful play to me.

[Mortificator]

I'm not sure I'd be able to stomach any more of that terrible combat music playing over every. single. encounter in the entire game.

It appears that the flinch in your eye... has called your bluff. I'm very sorry. Feel free to die, when you've had enough.

I replaced the combat tracks with something that wouldn't drive me insane in the original PC port. They were uncompressed, so it was an easy swap. Not sure about the HD collection, I haven't it but haven't got around to playing yet, though from a quick search it still seems to be possible.

[Lander]

Oh yes, turning off Taste The Blood in favour of your own tunes becomes mandatory for any kind of long-term play
Same for 4's The Time Has Come (And So Have I ) - fine enough as music, but you'd need balls of steel to listen to that ad infinitum.

I'm not sure how on earth you're even supposed to avoid Beowulf's white ground pound thing without it!

If memory serves, you listen for the CRUSH YOU cue and Jump Cancel -> Air Hike away right quick, possibly tacking on Aerial Rave, Rainstorm, or pistol mashing at the apex to avoid clipping the side of the hitsphere on the way down.
Might be able to Enemy Step off his face for a vertical dodge too, or just perfect guard it
You can also get free health drops by breaking the iron cages he punches at you instead of dodging them - tight timing for regular attacks, but you can ease it by using a long hitbox like Prop/Shredder or Sword Pierce.

I always liked 3's approach to bosses: There's almost always a trick, and it's almost always a secret mechanic supplementing the traditional exploitable holes in their AI or moveset.
Standing on top of Gigapede, damage racing Nevan for a hard knockdown, disarming Agni & Rudra with a cross-counter, stunning Geryon with a well-placed Helm Breaker, and so on. All totally missable, but critically useful.

I'm not a fan of the "punch-punch-PAUSE-punch" style combo variation, since it seems impossible for me to ever have an inherent feel of what point I even am at in a combo, especially when I start stringing together different moves, or just mash the button to get attacks out. It's not like Dante swings his sword exactly on the button press, and many single attacks result in multiple visible strikes, so that aspect never felt intuitive to me.

I think that's a more general genre issue that touches any melee action with decently long attack strings; mashing is a comfy cognitive load reducer, so it always takes conscious effort and practice to learn when the game will take your next input.
Though unlike ex. Ninja Gaiden, where achieving precision is the whole thesis, mash is still useful in high-level DMC3 since you need it to trigger Crazy Combo. And most of the time you only need to recognize the first or second attack, due to the early pause branches.

I did employ it when trying to break the "combat adjucator" statues, and I think a good example of me missing something is the one on Mission 7 that requires you to break it with your default sword, which I was never able to do.
I'd go through my moves as a shopping list, with level 3 Swordmaster moves weaved in - Stinger->Square button->High time->Square button->Help splitter->Back+square->Combo A->Forward square->Combo B, or something to that degree, but it wasn't enough to get the meter higher than SS.

The adjudicators can be really tough, since you don't get the easy out of swapping to an unprorated weapon for a reset. You need to go in with a maxed weapon + style, and probably full DT to take advantage of the attack speed boost. On top of that, they force you to use every single move, including the regular and swordmaster Crazy Combo variants (if applicable), and cancel aggressively, in order to stand a chance of hitting SSS. I can't remember if it's Rebellion, Nevan or Beowulf, but one of them in particular is always a herculean effort.

It's like a little taste of Dante Must Die mode, where enemies turn into mini combat adjudicators if you let them live too long

I'd also never rely on High Time enough to just send a bunch of enemies into the air consecutively like you describe. Pretty much every move that requires pushing away from an enemy while pressing another button just never felt completely reliable to me, with the exact directions being difficult to hit provided I'd even lock on to the correct enemy. Funny enough, I never had that issue with moves that require pushing towards enemies (Stinger).

Now I think of it, there's a fair bit of nuance to the targeting system that takes a while to click, but is very controllable when you get it down.
Were you playing mostly unlocked? Back specials should be consistent if you keep the lock input held down for the duration of a given combo.

My general approach to initiating is point at enemy -> press and hold R1 -> neutral stick -> dial in combo, using directions just for attack modifiers, or quick taps if an aimed jump / roll is needed to mitigate slowed ground movement.
I don't remember if 3 offers toggle-lock, but that should be avoided on principle for DMC, since it adds extra inputs and delay to targeting control.

Learning to neutral the stick more often than not is a generally good tactic as well - Dante will autocorrect toward the nearest enemy if you're not locked on, which makes it easier to deal with crowds or shift into lock-on mode without firing off an unintended directional special.
There's a parallel to be drawn with Dark Souls, wherein locked and unlocked are distinct modes of play with strengths in crowd control and single combat respectively, and learning when to apply each is a huge boon to controlling fights.

There's also some nitty-gritty to the lock-on logic that varies across games and needs to be kept on a leash to prevent it from biting you.
I can't recall the specifics of 3, but I know the series has done closest-position, closest-to-direction-of-character and closest-to-direction-of-stick before now.

Bayonetta
(...)
It seems a little to easy to dodge enemy attacks by just dashing in any direction at the right moment, and nearly any move can be canceled into a dodge. Having to properly fit a jump into your string of moves in DMC3 felt a lot more like skilful play to me.

Bayo 1 isn't too bad for that - the higher difficulties do a nice job of gradually making it less uber, and have a few notable encounters that test the player's dodging to its limit. Real pulse-pounding stuff.

Bayo 2 on the other hand... Awesome game, but it inverts the dodge balancing and leans heavily into Witch Time as difficulty scales, creating a DBZ power creep that culminates in perfect slow-mo being the only safe or reliable way to get anything done.

[Sima Tuna]

I like DMC 3 music, especially the Vergil themes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8I1Hku8GQk

This is the song I think of when I think "DMC3," just like how Bayo makes me think of "Mysterious Destiny."

Re: mashing, I really like how Ninja Gaiden punishes mashers hard. There are a couple of weapons that are more mash-friendly (Vigoorian Flail and Lunar,) but even then, if you just mash button, you gonna get fukt. I remember this one let's play I watched where the dude was playing NG Sigma on normal and he kept mashing X with the Lunar. And invariably, a Spider Clan Ninja would manage to slip out of his staff range, time their attack from a distance and leap in to body his ass! He'd start sputtering and getting mad. And I don't know if he ever figured out what was happening to him or why. Because he kept mashing X with the Lunar and eventually, by spamming items, he managed to get through. But then he'd wind up in another arena with enemies who would punish him on his negative frames at the end of a mashed-out Lunar combo, and he'd be upset.

That's what I fucking love about Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Warriors Once Again has some similar stuff it does, where a dude will stand just barely outside your punch range to stab you with the knife. The game knows! In both cases, you have to know how to recover safely from offense.

[Volteccer_Jack]

And even if I did, I'm not sure I'd be able to stomach any more of that terrible combat music playing over every. single. encounter in the entire game.

The secret to enjoying DMC3's soundtrack is to mute it and play your own music.

I'm not sure how on earth you're even supposed to avoid Beowulf's white ground pound thing without it!

Beowulf's ground pound is avoided by running away a short distance and then jumping. That's an attack that is avoided by movement rather than just i-frames. Unless you're in Royal Guard lol.

The whole game can be played without styles. Standard run/jump are your best evasion tools, and Reb/Beo Combo 1 is your best damage dealer (or jump-cancelled Killer Bee if we allow upgrades). The styles are supplemental and are mostly more technical/advanced than the core moveset. Prop Shredder and Sword Pierce are valuable mainly for their stagger/knockback properties, Trickster moves are all about rapid mobility. Trickster and Quicksilver are surely the best ones for a new player, because they make it very easy to get out of the way of threats.

I'd go through my moves as a shopping list, with level 3 Swordmaster moves weaved in - Stinger->Square button->High time->Square button->Help splitter->Back+square->Combo A->Forward square->Combo B, or something to that degree, but it wasn't enough to get the meter higher than SS.

Just do your whole movelist in any order, then repeat that order. Extend Crazy Combos like Million Stab to help your other moves' staleness to refresh. If you're not finding it easy and pointless, you're probably overthinking it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJsrHNKvLqw

I'm not a fan of the "punch-punch-PAUSE-punch" style combo variation, since it seems impossible for me to ever have an inherent feel of what point I even am at in a combo, especially when I start stringing together different moves, or just mash the button to get attacks out. It's not like Dante swings his sword exactly on the button press, and many single attacks result in multiple visible strikes, so that aspect never felt intuitive to me.

I don't see how any of that is different from the two-button combo strings in a game like NG or GoW. The pause merely allows one button to fill the role of two.

It seems a little to easy to dodge enemy attacks by just dashing in any direction at the right moment, and nearly any move can be canceled into a dodge.

Again, I don't see how this is different from dodging in DMC3. In both games, most attacks are incredibly easy to avoid. The skill lies in doing so without losing your offensive momentum, because both games are heavily focused on ranked play. (they're also both quite easy unless playing the hardest setting)