It took a bit,
but I cleared DMD again. Compare and contrast with the one I did a few years ago on the original PS2 version
if you feel like it, the columns from left to right represent Normal, Hard, and Dante Must Die for each mission. I did Normal some time ago when I first got the collection and I wasn't really pushing myself, but with Hard I wouldn't settle for anything below a B rank, and by Dante Must Die I wasn't taking anything below an A. For the final stretch I kept pushing myself for S ranks; I really wanted to end things stylishly. I think the satisfaction was well worth the effort. I'm just gonna kind of rant about things I found cool or interesting.
A lot of people I talk to tend to favor Alastor and never use Ifrit, but once you get to the highest difficulty it becomes really tough to ignore how useful those gauntlets can be. Against Frosts, Nero Angelo, and Nightmare they're hands-down the best option for dealing with them as quickly and stylishly as possible. Ifrit is also one of the reasons that DMC1 is my favorite game in the series due to it pretty much objectively being the best gauntlet weapon; every attack is accompanied by the noise of raging flames that intensifies as you charge it up punctuated by an amazing crunching sound as Dante hits the opponent. I especially like the visuals, where fire forms around whatever limb Dante uses to attack and leaves a fiery trail behind it as he moves incredibly fast to strike whatever demon happens to be in his way. Regular enemies don't have visible healthbars in DMC1, but all these effects really make you sure that you're beating the shit out of them once you land a fully-charged punch or kick. Beowulf and Gilgamesh never had the same level of work put into their animations and sound design despite working pretty much exactly the same mechanically, and I think it leaves them feeling downright flaccid in comparison.
As for guns, I hear about a lot of people sticking with the shotgun and grenade launcher for most of the game, but I only used them in one situation each, and I stuck with Dante's iconic pistols for most of the adventure. They don't pack quite as much of a punch per shot, but they fire as fast as you can hit the square button and hit at any range. you can also stunlock puppets and even Nobodies with them for a ton of easy style points if you know what you're doing, and the couple of seconds of airtime you get if you shoot with them after a jump saved my life more times than I can count. The other weapons are way more restrictive in comparison; they offer more damage per shot at certain ranges, but you can't dish out that damage nearly as consistently or safely as you can with Ebony and Ivory, and not taking damage is
really important when you can only take 2-4 hits even with a maxed-out healthbar.
I used the grenade launcher to kill those two Plasmas in the lava-filled room before you unlock Mundus' cathedral. Fighting them with melee over the lava isn't a great idea, and I wanted a full Devil Trigger gauge for Mundus, so roll-cancelling with the grenade launcher was the best option I could think of to kill them before they decided to go into Devil Trigger mode themselves. I never used it after that.
I pulled out the shotgun for the second phase of the fight with Mundus. He sometimes summons small orbs near you which spin around and fire projectiles. These things were the death of me many times over, but aiming the shotgun at Mundus and firing often breaks those orbs and gives you some extra DT runes for your trouble, which is especially important in that fight. I was tempted to use Nightmare Beta at a few points, but the possibility of running out of DT runes was a little scary. Enemies go into Devil Trigger on DMD if you let them stick around for long enough, and for many of them they don't even flinch at your attacks if you aren't in DT mode yourself, so having some spare runes on hand is a pretty good idea.
Similarly, many people mention having the most trouble with Nightmare, but the most challenging fight for me was the final match with Nero Angelo. I went in there and I kept getting wrecked without even getting a significant chunk off of his healthbar. Eventually I realized that the time he spends taunting you or flourishing with his sword after certain attacks (and especially if he's staggered after you parry one of his attacks) lines up perfectly with the time needed to charge up a punch with Ifrit. Just one of those punches will do as much damage as a combo from Alastor even if you're not using DT. If you are, you can chain a massive combo by substituting the last hit of the normal one with Kick 13's rush, and if you launch a fireball after that you can do even more damage for an A-rank combo and a massive chunk of his healthbar. He'll start blocking after you finish a combo either way, so it's just downright better to use a weapon that you can charge up for more damage. Ifrit also allows you to coat yourself in flames during a jump, which is a massive help when you can use that to break the spectral swords that he sends at you that might have hit you otherwise. They're the least telegraphed attack in the game, so having that extra safety net is a huge help.
Nightmare was no slouch either, but Ifrit was already my weapon of choice for that boss. He powers up based on the number of hits he receives instead of damage taken, and you're usually safe once you're next to his core for most attacks to charge up punches. The fire jump is even more useful considering you can use it to stun him by attacking the spears projectiles and boomerangs he sends out at you. The infamous last phase of the final fight against him gets a lot easier once you realize that you can just hang back and open fire to build up DT for air raid, avoiding his lasers by locking on and simply moving sideways instead of rolling. I actually retried that fight after I S-Ranked it because I goofed and went into the shmup section against Mundus without a full DT bar, and it only took me a couple of tries to do it again.
I know I said that player freedom was one of my favorite things about the series, but one of the reasons that I like the first game so much is that it actually restricts that a little bit. Certain strategies don't work as well as others in DMC1, and once you fall into a comfort zone of using a certain weapon or write off certain moves, you're going to run into a situation where you're making things way harder on yourself than if you were more flexible. Would you believe me if I told you that my S-Ranking strategy against Mundus centered around Round Trip? From the very first cutscene, Dante makes it clear that he's not too picky about the way he fights, whipping out his guns when Trish insults his swordplay, and I really adore how the game pushes you to remain flexible and keep every trick in your book in mind as you go through the game. I don't see this as much in later games, and while I don't think that makes it any worse, they're both good philosophies in different ways, but I do happen to like the first better out of personal preference.
I guess next time I do a playthrough I'll have to up the ante by S ranking every mission, but hopefully I can find a more sane hobby until then.
Riddles,
Majoraa,
Buteo,
Mixtape Ghost N,
Cleveraptor,
Noctis,
pppppp,
Drag,
Kaithe Dame,
Senhara
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