How Does One Git Gud?

[Mylo_Cordana]

Although I love this type of melee-based hacky-slashy game, I haven't played a proper Devil May Cry game before. I've always been interested in the series but I never came into possession of the older games. After DMC5 received a lot of recognition last year, I put it on my list and recently got around to playing it. I recently finished the game for the first time and it didn't really click with me. I have the feeling that I'm doing something wrong and that I need to learn to play the game effectively, but I haven't found any good technical guides online.

I played the game on the Human difficulty setting because that was the default. It felt bizarre to me because I had absolutely no trouble beating the game, not having to use a Golden Orb until the final fight with Vergil. Yet I constantly felt like I was playing terribly. I got battered around a lot and mostly got a D or C rating in combat. It seems to me like the game is less about whether you succeed and defeat the monster and more about how efficient and stylish you are in doing it. The game kept giving me new weapons and abilities before I'd even figured out what to do with the last one. The devil hunters don't have much in the way of defensive options and I frequently took attacks. I never found effective ways to fight enemies with shields or those rolling things.

TL;DR: I didn't really like DMC5 and I think it's because I need to git gud. I'm asking if anyone can point me to a guide on how to play the game well.

[Sixtyfivekills]

Originally posted by Mylo_Cordana:

I played the game on the Human difficulty setting because that was the default. It felt bizarre to me because I had absolutely no trouble beating the game, not having to use a Golden Orb until the final fight with Vergil.

Devil Hunter is default one. You were playing it on easy.


How do you get better? Try going for S ranks on higher difficulties. That's really it, you're forced to get better if you want to stand the chance.

[Sidyctism]

there are some advanced dante and nero guides out there, but the first thing you need to learn is your moveset and when and how to apply it.

[Medusahead]

To keep it short:

Nero: Learn exceed and use it for every sword attack, learn how to jump cancel(after getting the ability), get used to input buffering for charged shots. Do all that and you'll be overpowered even without any skill.

V: Rebind your controls so that you can attack with shadow and griffon at the same time, use royal fork (alot), Keep using input buffers, use air taunts.

Dante: Learn how to style switch, Learn all devil arm moves from memory, use air combos and jump cancelling as much as possible, get your rank to SSS quickly so you can keep using quadruple S. You can get your rank up quickly with air cavalier or doing simple balrog jump cancels.

Obviously there's more to it than that but this general stuff that you see new players constantly neglecting and then having trouble later. If you can do everything above you should have no problems until you reach the hardest difficulty.

[ThinRedPaste]

The way to git gud is to just keep playing and pay attention. Enemies telegraph their moves pretty clearly in advance, and most enemies have some special strategy that the game doesn't explicitly tell you about. For example, the rolling lizard guys can't move while spinning if you're shooting at them, and if you hit their spine blades enough they'll break, preventing them from spinning at all.

Really, though, it's not a game you're meant to be good at the first time through. The first playthrough of any DMC game is basically an extended tutorial - you aren't playing the real game until you have all of the abilities. It's very much a mastery sort of game. You're right that it's not about just beating the enemies. It's about styling on them. But REALLY it's about styling on them while also playing on Dante Must Die difficulty, which is definitely a legitimate challenge.