This is More than Mashing, a column on amazing demonstrations of skill in video games where I try to collect and showcase the best the net has to offer in skilled game playing and break it down so anyone can understand. This week I’m going over Brea’s True Style Tournament 3 entry in the Trickster category.
Breatoal is one of the world’s greatest Devil May Cry players, and has been featured in the Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom 3 community for some Vergil combo videos and creative use of the Viewtiful Joe Pink Bomber assist infinite. While she certainly has more impressive videos than this in her DMC4 collections, I think this one has a certain magic to it in its simplicity yet amazing demonstrations of skill. Devil May Cry 3 is one of few games where with some clever tricks and a little work, you can fly nearly indefinitely. In my previous article on Cancels, I mentioned Jump Canceling and gave a little primer on how it works, I’m going to do a full fleshing out of the Jump Cancel mechanic and all of its implications here, but first I’m going to go into how DMC3 works just a bit.
In Devil May Cry 3, you have the option of equipping 2 melee weapons, 2 guns, and 1 style. Melee weapons comprise the majority of your attacks, guns are useful for keeping combos alive and ranged offensives, and the 4 styles (6 if you count doppelganger and quicksilver) help tie Dante’s moveset together and really define the way the game is played. In this video, Brea is using the Trickster Style, which is an evasive style that offers up a lot of movement options, including the ability to dodge enemy attacks, wallrun, teleport directly to the enemy locked onto, and airdash once in midair. Additionally, many weapons in DMC3 grant the ability to Double Jump, which is oddly not part of Dante’s innate moveset. In this video, Brea is using Agni and Rudra, a pair of fire and wind swords, and cerberus, a nunchaku with 3 ends.
Between the Trickster style and his normal movement abilities, Dante can jump once, wallrun, jump again while in the air, airdash once, and teleport once. This basically guarantees that eventually he has to come back to ground, however there is one critical feature to DMC3’s engine called the Jump Cancel. The developers gave Dante the ability to jump off enemy’s heads, which cancels whatever animation dante is currently in, and has him jump instead. In DMC4, this became an unlockable ability called Enemy Step available fore both Dante and Nero. Jump Canceling also resets basically every counter Dante has, restoring his double jump, teleport, wallrun, and airdash. As long as Dante can keep resetting his counters he can stay in the air indefinitely, but this means he is also reliant on enemies to jump off of.
Speaking of enemies to jump off of, Brea couldn’t have picked a better one. Fallen are angelic enemies that fly around, and have shields that must be broken before they can be damaged directly. They attack with large lances that they twirl around their heads, making it dangerous to stay near them, and they regenerate their shields after a period of time if they aren’t killed first. Most noticeably, they fly. They can even phase through walls and exit the boundaries of the area.
By using a combination of jump cancels, teleports, double jumps and airdashes, Brea can outright fly through the air, wailing on the fallen with the Cerberus, which is really handy for jump cancel combos, and probably one of the easiest aerials to jump cancel. You can see her make Dante twirl around, smacking the Fallen with the nunchaku several times in a row when she gets close, then she retreats when they start up their lance attack to fire with the shotgun and handguns. She keeps Agni and Rudra around for their double jump ability. Cerberus does not grant Dante the ability to double jump (not all weapons in DMC3 do) so she has to switch to Agni and Rudra every time she wants to double jump. It also has a nice cross slice which can be repeated with the jump cancel. The shotgun normally has great pushback and can interrupt a lot of enemy attacks, but the Fallen don’t register hitstun of any kind except when their shields are being broken. The handgun is really handy for maintaining altitude as it slows Dante’s fall.
The jump cancel is basic DMC3 info, but a little bit goes a long way and Brea uses it to soar. The second fight features a lot of jump cancels all over the place, such as using Cerberus’s Revolver move (jump forward while spinning the nunchaku in a twirl) and jump canceling it into aerial attacks. Here’s a challenge for the readers, try spotting all the jump cancels in the second fight. If Dante is over an enemy’s head and an animation cuts or or he jumps, then that’s probably one. Sorry for not writing more, finals are cutting in and this is all I’m able to do for the time being.
Do you have a video of someone doing something amazing in a video game? Send it my way in the comments and I’ll add it to my youtube playlists (Just hit 400 videos!), and maybe break it down in the future. I love seeing things unlike what I have already, so if you have something unique please share it.
This party was absolutely cuhrayzee and I’ll see you all next time!
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 