Devil May Cry 3 (PlayStation 2) Boss Guide for Normal, Easy, and Hard Began: 4/5/05 Last Revised: 9/16/05 Authored by: J2DK (Mr_Bombastic9@hotmail.com) LEGAL DISCLAIMER: If this document or any part of it is copied or used without my consent, I will feel free to sue you for plagiarism or copyright infringement. If you would like to use any part of my FAQ, E-mail me telling me what you want to do with it and what parts you would like to use, and I'll reply. Thank you for your consideration. If this FAQ is found anywhere but GameFAQs.com, neoseeker.com, and supercheats.com, please notify me. *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* TABLE OF CONTENTS ------ I. Introduction II. Revision History III. General Tips and Notes A. About the guide B. Royal Guard and Parrying notes C. DT Explosion notes/Transformation Flux D. Quicksilver and Doppelganger styles E. Switch-Cancel firing and jump-cancel F. A note about difficulties G. Game sound IV. Boss guide H. Hell Vanguard I. Cerberus J. Gigapede K. Agni and Rudra L. Vergil 1 M. Leviathan Heart N. Nevan O. Beowulf P. Geryon Q. Vergil 2 R. Lady S. Doppelganger T. Mission 19 Boss U. Vergil 3 V. Final Comments VI. Special Thanks *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* I. INTRODUCTION ------ J2DK is back and dope as ever. ------ Devil May Cry 3 is one of the hardest games to be released this millennium. If Normal and Hard don't strike you as challenging, try tackling Dante Must Die mode. I might be a little late with the Boss guide, but I'm sure there are many people still having trouble with the bosses on all 4 (not counting Heaven or Hell mode) difficulties. I hope this guide helps all those still stuck on the lower levels and those that are attempting the higher levels. I am assuming that whoever reads this has a decent knowledge of the Devil Arms and how to use crazy combos/the button mash combos such as million stab. If not, please read the in-game tutorials. Please remember, these are not the only ways to defeat these bosses in Normal (easy, and hard) mode, these are simply MY strategies for defeating them easily. Some may seem complicated, but if you read carefully and watch the boss, you’ll completely understand what I’m talking about. With that out of the way, Let's rock! *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* II. REVISION HISTORY ------ *4/05/05* Guide composition begins - General Tips and Notes completed. - Introduction completed. - Legal disclaimer completed. - Special thanks completed. - Hell Vanguard guide: begun. - Hell Vanguard guide: completed. - Vergil 3 guide: begun. - Vergil 3 guide: completed. - Cerberus guide: begun. *4/07/05* - Cerberus guide: completed. *4/08/05* - Gigapede guide: begun. - Gigapede guide: completed. *4/09/05* - Agni and Rudra guide: begun - Agni and Rudra guide: completed. - Vergil 1 guide: begun. - Vergil 1 guide: completed. - Leviathan Heart guide: begun. *4/10/05* - Leviathan Heart guide: completed. - Nevan guide: begun. - Nevan guide: completed. - Beowulf guide: begun. - Beowulf guide: completed. - Geryon guide: begun. *4/11/05* - Geryon guide: completed. *4/12/05* - Vergil 2 guide: begun. - Vergil 2 guide: completed. - Lady guide: completed. - Doppelganger guide: begun. - Doppelganger guide: completed. *4/24/05* - Mission 19 boss guide: begun. - Mission 19 boss guide: completed. - Version 1.0: completed. *4/26/05* - Hell Vanguard guide: revised. *4/27/05* - Added Royal Guard cancel in General Tips and Notes. *4/28/05* - Changed Cerberus Recommended guns and guns strategy. *5/2/05* - Tweaked Cerberus Swordmaster strategy. *5/4/05* - Added Doppelganger tip from reader. *5/16/05* - Added some Recommended Styles - Fixed Vergil controls in Mission 19 boss section - Tweaked a strategy here and there *5/18/05* - Added the rest of Recommended Styles *5/22/05* - Touched up my grammar in some places. *8/16/05* - Changing recommended weapons for Vergil fights to Beowulf and Nevan. Introducing the Killer Bee bounce to the FAQ. I never got around to adding it. - Turning 18 today. *8/23/05* - Added supercheats.com and neoseeker.com to authorized list. *8/27/05* - Revised Mission 19 Boss guide. - Added new “One person, two controllers” strategy to Mission 19 Boss. *9/04/05* - Finally fixing the Cerberus section. Sorry for the delay. - Finally fixed Doppelganger. Sorry again. - Added jump canceling melee attacks to General Tips and Notes, section F. - Added quotes. *9/16/05* - Fixed Doppelganger, again. - Fixed Agni and Rudra, again. - Fixed Leviathan Heart, again. - Fixed Lady, again. *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* III. GENERAL TIPS AND NOTES ------ A. About the guide: In this FAQ I have included "First time through" and "recommended weapons." "First time through" will list the best weapons considering the weapons available to Dante at the time at hand. "Recommended" is where I will list the best weapons to use on the boss after Dante acquires all the weapons in the game. After "Recommended" are listed, I will list any strategy changes applicable. I will either first address a general strategy, one that can be used for all styles then afterwards I will add style-specific tips if applicable, or I will suggest a style. If you don't know which of Dante's attacks I am talking about, check your weapon/style files in the left D-pad menu screen. ------ B. Royal Guard, RG cancel, and Parrying notes: Guard and release are only the basics. "Just guard" is a special guard. To Just Guard, guard right before the attack connects with Dante. This charges up energy for release quickly. There's also "Just Release." It is performed similarly to Just Guard. Perform release just as the attack should hit Dante. This does adds extra damage to an already extremely damaging attack. Devil Trigger amplifies release further. Each level of Royal Guard allows for more age to be stored. To the left of the life bar is the rage indicator. The three green orbs are dark when not charged at all. They blink when partially charged and remain bright when fully charged. Level 1 allows for 1 orb of rage to be stored for release. Level 2 allows for 2 orbs. Level 3 allows for all 3 orbs. Royal guard’s guard is a cancel move like switching weapons and jumping, except for one thing: it’s better. Any time I mention switch-cancel firing, if you’re using Royal Guard, shoot, guard, then shoot again instead. You’ll find that it’s much quicker. It’s especially effective with spiral. Guard also effectively cancels almost every one of Dante’s melee weapon attacks. I will refer to weapon parries as parries and Royal guard parries as deflections. Parries occur when two weapons/fists collide mid attack. Any of Dante's weapons can parry an enemy's attack with one of it's own attacks. Deflections occur when Dante guards the moment an attack hits him. The movement of his arms deflects the attack as a parry would. ------ C. DT Explosion notes/Transformation Flux: DT Explosion is when you create a small field of energy around Dante when he transforms. To perform this, hold down L1 and keep an eye on your DT runes. The runes past the first three will turn red one at a time. To realease the explosion, let go of L1. Make sure you're close to the enemy you want to harm. This makes many boss fights easier, especially if you have a maxed out DT gauge. During any boss fight, charge it and let go when comboing the boss. If you're close enough to combo, you're close enough to hit them with the transformation flux. A transformation flux combined with a release or just release is the most powerful combo in the game hands down. Never forget about the DT explosion, especially when your Devil Trigger is at maximum level. ------ D. Quicksilver and Doppelganger styles: I will not add specific strategies for them (on bosses) because it's always the same. Use quicksilver if you can't dodge or guard a certain attack quickly enough and if you want to combo your enemy for a longer period of time. Use doppelganger if you want to double your melee damage. I don't recommend them for many battles unless you have Super Dante because the Devil Trigger and DT explosion are more useful and more important during boss battles than those. ------ E. Switch-Cancel firing and jump-cancel: This is a technique that increases the firing speed of all the other guns besides E&I. As soon as you fire a shot with any of the other 4 guns, switch to E&I and switch back to the other gun to fire a shot more quickly than normally possible. To learn the time for a certain gun, keep pressing square as you switch to E&I, as soon as you see the first pistol shot, switch to the slower gun. By the way, Spiral adds the most style points. Using spiral, you can get to S combos with gunfire alone. Jump canceling only works with the shotgun and Artemis. For the shotgun and Artemis, fire, hop, fire, land, fire, hop, fire, land, fire, etc. Jump cancel also works for weapons. ------ F. Jump canceling melee attacks/enemy hiking: Some melee attacks can be canceled by jumping off of (most) enemies. Killer bee is a prime example. As the kick connects, Dante can jump off the enemy and perform another killer bee and another and another. This is great for damage. A&R’s Aerial cross can also be abused this way, but only against enemies that do not fall down or go flying when hit. Cerberus’s revolver can be jump canceled out of opening up for a swing. Swing can be jump canceled. Helm breaker can be jump canceled (This is useful mostly against chess pieces). Note: Not all moves that can be jump canceled can be jump canceled against every enemy. These are only examples and Jump canceled melee moves are not limited to only these moves. ------ G. A note about difficulties: On easy, bosses attack less often, do less damage than usual, and seem a bit slow to react. On normal, they seem just right: reacting with near human speed and strength. On hard, bosses are more aggressive (they attack more often) and do more damage than usual. On Dante Must Die mode, the bosses inflict godly damage and (mostly) attack with, at least to DMC3 DMD newcomers, unfair speed and freakish aggression. This guide does not cover Dante Must Die difficulty. ------ H. Game sound: When you play Devil May Cry 3, make sure you can hear the game's sound effects. Most if not all enemies give away their attacks with sounds or words. I made up the names for bosses’ attacks. Sorry if they’re not the official names. *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* IV. BOSS GUIDE ------ Read section III. General Tips and Notes before continuing into this guide. ------ H. Hell Vanguard “Hahahaha! Dong.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion Guns: E&I Notes: The Hell Vanguard is not a true boss. He later becomes a regular enemy/mini-boss. Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Teleport - HV teleports around the fighting area. He disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Lock on to keep track of him. After he teleports, stinger into him and don't let up until your sword clangs into his scythe. He will perform either the Overhead Scythe Slash or the Horizontal Scythe Slash. Either roll or jump over him to avoid his slashes and continue comboing. Overhead Scythe Slash - HV performs a slow and obvious overhead slash. Dodge and combo. Horizontal Scythe Slash - HV performs a horizontal scythe slash if and only if he performs the overhead slash without interruption. Parrying his overhead slash counts as an interruption, but Royal Guarding it does not. Teleport Special (donnggg) - HV teleports away with the sound of a bell tolling. When he does this, get ready to dodge because he's about to perform one of the following two attacks. Teleport Uppercut - HV teleports along with the toll of a bell. The ground ripples under Dante and a few seconds later, HV leaps out of the ground with a scythe uppercut. Run away (Don't roll) from the rippling area as quickly as possible. Teleport Dash - HV teleports along with the toll of a bell. He reappears and dashes forward slashing madly. To dodge, look for a ripple. If you DON'T see a ripple on the ground and you hear HV reappear (hard to explain the sound, hard to miss it), jump or air hike (air hike preferably). All Styles Strategy: When Hell Vanguard first appears, stinger into him (if you have it) then start comboing him. If you don't have stinger, run up to him and start comboing. Use only the normal combos, stinger, and high time into helm breaker (aerial attack). Stay away from using million stab because the damage is not worth the long execution time. Combo until you hear a clang and Dante stutters backwards. Roll out of the way or jump over HV (whichever is easier for you) then begin comboing from that side while HV finishes his attack. HV will then teleport away. If you don't hear a bell toll (donnggg), then lock on and stinger/run to the HV again. If you hear a bell toll (donnggg), pick a direction and air hike. Whether HV is doing the ground slash or the dash slash, Dante will be safe. On Easy mode, HV rarely uses his bell teleport moves. On Normal mode, he uses them more frequently. On Easy and Normal mode, he never uses a bell toll move more than once in succession. On Hard mode, he uses two bell toll moves in succession and teleports more frequently. After HV finishes his bell toll moves, he will reappear normally. Go back to comboing him until you hear a clang again. Make sure you listen for bell tolls. Continue till HV dies. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Additional tips with Recommended: Use Beowulf's killer bee or straight to get close to HV. Combo as usual. Use Devil trigger whenever and however you want now that it's available. Throw in a KA shot for when you run into him as a normal enemy and other lesser demons are around. Sometimes they will crowd you while you are trying to take him out first. Fire a KA rocket to knock them away and continue with your strategy. Style Specific Tips: Trickster- To dodge the rippling bell toll attacks, simply dash instead of running. It's a bit safer. With Trickster level 2, dodging the teleport dash attack becomes easier. Once you notice the ripples aren't there after a bell teleport, jump/air hike and then sky star in any direction. You can do this a little earlier than simply jumping. With level 3, air trick helps a little if you want to use it. Swordmaster - Level 1, 2, and 3 can help you with combos against HV. Real Impact is a boss killer and this is one enemy you want to kill quickly. When he teleports in and spins hyis scythe, straight into him and initiate real impact. You must be very quick for this to work correctly. Only use real impact when it’s safe: When you catch him right after teleporting (no bell). Gunslinger - While HV is teleporting, charge up some charge shots with E&I and let loose when he reappears (non bell attack). Afterwards, continue as normal. You can use the Shotgun's gunstinger to get close if you so choose. Royal Guard - This one's obvious if you're a royal guard master. Then again, if you're an RG master, you don't need to read this guide. Go about the fight as usual except during combos when you hear a clang, instead of dodging, Just guard the attack. If you see his overhead attack coming and Just Guard it without parrying first, don't forget that HV will perform the horizontal slash as well. The bell toll attacks can be Just Guarded as well, but because it is difficult to time the Just Guard against these attacks, I recommend dodging them instead. To just guard the uppercut, wait for a second then jump (or air hike) and guard when you hear him come out of the ground. Standing on the ground trying to guard will surely get you hit or your guard broken. To just guard the scythe dash, guard when you hear him reappear. Release the stored energy whenever you like while comboing HV. Just Release during DT for maximum damage. Recommended Style: Trickster or Swordmaster ------ I. Cerberus “YOU AREN’T HUMAN, ARE YOU! RAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRR” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion Guns: E&I Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Direction change - not really an attack, but Cerberus will turn and face Dante's general direction. When he faces the right more, he barely can hit the left side. When he faces left, he can barely face the right side. Paw swipe - Cerberus lifts one paw and swipes in front of him quickly. Roll then jump out of the way of any following swipes. This takes a quick reaction to dodge. Single paw Crystal - Cerb lifts one paw and roars, then slams his paw into the ground generating a line of jagged ice to rise in a relatively straight line in front of his paw. To dodge this, jump to the side. Air hiking and hovering with E&I works, too. Double paw Million Carats - Cerb lifts both paws and rears a little bit while saying "YOU AREN’T HUMAN, ARE YOU!" or something then slams down and large ice crystals all around him. Jump away avoid this or air hike and hover with E&I. This is the only attack that Cerberus announces by saying something. The rest of the sounds he makes are roars and growls. Head-butt - Cerb lowers his 3 heads and nudges forward a little bit. You can tell he did the attack because his heads get a white "whisping wind" effect around them. To dodge this, when he lowers his heads, back away. Gnash - If you stay close too him for too long, he will perform a quick, almost undetectable biting attack. Just don't stay in his face too long. Pounce/dash attack - Cerberus lowers his entire front body and slightly raises his hindquarters. If you've ever seen an animal get ready to pounce, especially a feline, it looks just like that. Garfield fans should be very familiar with this. This means he's about to dash forward only to be pulled back because of his chains. Roll out of the way or air hike over him. If you don’t have air hike, don’t jump, roll instead. Jumping won’t get you high enough or far enough to avoid the attack and you get a few tons of doggy on top of you. Chain break - Cerberus rustles around in his chains. This isn't really an attack, but he's held back by 5 chains. Sometimes when he rustles, he breaks one. He can break up to 4 of them. When he is held back by only one chain, his pounce goes to the other end of the room and he dashes very quickly. While Cerberus is messing with his chains, helm breaker him in the face(s). Head rotation - Cerberus will roar and rotate his 3 heads. The head in the middle delegates which attack the heads will perform. The heads each have different colored eyes. Freeze breath (red/orange eyes) - Cerberus rears up on his hind legs roaring and blue light shines from his mouth. He comes back to the ground and blows freezing breath on the floor. Touching the frozen floor causes damage. To dodge this, jump/air hike and hover with E&I or run to the non-affected area: the side of the room Cerberus isn't pointing towards. If he's facing toward the left, run to the right, etc. Ice balls (light blue eyes) - Cerberus lowers his front body. Blue light appears by his middle mouth and when it's released, he shoots an ice ball in Dante's direction. These can be deflected back at Cerberus with a quick swing of Rebellion or you can wait for the balls to be shot and roll. Only roll if an ice ball is going your way or you might end up rolling into one. Icicle drop (yellow eyes) - Cerberus's most dangerous move because it hits multiple times and drops from directly above Dante's position. To dodge this attack, simply roll around until it stops. It's possible to tell where the icicles will drop because the floor looks "cold" (it frosts a little) where the icicles will drop. When the floor stops frosting around Dante (or when the icicles stop coming o_o) the attack is over. Ice Armor - Cerberus rears up like the freeze blast, but lets out a slightly higher pitched roar. He renews the Ice Armor he began the fight with. Blue lights sparkle all over his character. General Strategy: Shoot like a madman to knock the ice armor off of Cerberus's weak spots. Try to target both paws and the yellow head first (L3 switches targets). The yellow eyed head uses Cerberus's most accurate attack, Icicle drop, so the faster you kill it, the less you have to worry about it. Stinger into a paw and perform a few helm breakers while paying close attention to the rest of Cerberus. Using helm breaker on a paw usually gets Dante hitting one of the side heads as well as the paw. Make sure you are listening for his attacks and watching his heads' movement. Dodge any crystal attacks and if Cerberus starts to swipe at you, QUICKLY roll away from him (left paw, roll right; right paw, roll left) and jump away. Target the other headswith E&I to knock off the ice guarding them. When Cerberus stops swiping around with his paws, Stinger into that same paw again and continue to combo it. Sometimes while attacking a paw, one of his heads takes damage, too. Eventually, Cerberus will collapse from his paw being weak. Jump in the middle of the heads and go to town on them with stingers, helm breakers, and (Triangle, pause, triangle, triangle) combos. Hitting two or more heads does more damage than hitting one, but still try to concentrate attacks on the yellow eyed head. Keep attacking Cerberus as he gets up, but once he stands up fully, be safe and back away. From this point on, alternate between getting up close and personal with Rebellion (jumping high times and helm breakers) and firing away with E&I from a distance. Remember to never stay in his face too long. While head-butt and pounce are pretty easy to see coming, the gnash attack is just about impossible to telegraph. If Cerberus pounces, stinger into him and Helm breaker like mad while he is recovering. Continue until he stands all the way up. If at any time Cerberus recovers his Ice Armor, simply shoot it off him again. After knocking Cerb's paw out once, concentrate on damaging the heads. The time it takes to knock Cerb down via attacking his paw a second time is not worth the effort. Once you destroy the yellow eyed head, decide which attack (freeze breath or ice balls) gives you more trouble. I usually kill the yellow eyed head, then the light blue eyed head (ice balls attack), leaving the pitiful freeze breath attack as the only special "head attack" since it's the easiest to avoid. When Cerberus has only one head left, he begins to attack very rapidly often doing the head's special attack several times in a row. This is why we leave the easiest to dodge for last. Sometimes when Cerberus stands up from being stunned, he will shake his chains off. While he is shaking his chains off, helm breaker him in the face(s) as many times as you can. Often times, your breakers will catch more than one head. Now that Cerberus is down to his freeze breath attack, look for the icy mist give away. Whenever you see him to start misting at the mouth, run in close and get ready to jump. When he starts freezing the ground, target him, jump, and start to hover with E&I once you reach the highest point of Dante’s jump. When he’s done freezing the ground, come down in him with a nice helm breaker, then perform a rising high time followed by another helm breaker. Back away and wait for another freeze breath attack; repeat as needed. Why do we need to back off before the next freeze breath attack? Cerberus still uses his headbutt, swipes, and his gnash attacks. These would be difficult to dodge if you stayed in front of him. If you don't want to attack him with melee in his last stage of fighting, stand on the side of the room Cerberus isn't facing and just blast away at the final head. Cerberus either faces the left or the right side of the room. If he faces left, run to the right; if he faces right, run to the left. This position is applicable whenever firing E&I from a distance. This gives you more space to shoot and eliminates the need to dodge *most* attacks. Melee is simply more efficient. On hard mode, shooting from the side he isn't facing isn't as useful because he turns to face Dante more often. Shooting one head for a little bit of extra time after knocking the ice off of it delays Cerberus’ pounce attack. The windup becomes longer as does the recovery (sliding back to his corner). Helm breaker is obviously your best friend during this fight since you only have the Rebellion at this point. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Agni & Rudra and Beowulf/Nevan (Swordmaster) Guns: E&I and Spiral Extra tips for Recommended: Cerberus is elementally weak to Agni & Rudra. Replace helm breakers with Aerial crosses. To inflict damage more quickly, aerial cross -> E&I shot -> Aerial cross then jump back up or air hike and repeat. Whenever comboing Cerberus (or his paw), use A&R instead of your other weapon. Use Beowulf to get close after pounces (killer bee). Regarding Nevan, see the Swordmaster section for notes and tips. Regarding guns, use whatever like best. E&I are most useful because of their rapid fire. Spiral is the most useful alternate gun because of it’s range and power. Fire it as quickly as possible (cancel) when distancing yourself from Cerberus. You have a devil trigger now. Use it. :) Devil trigger when you get in Cerberus's face with aerial cross for maximum efficiency. A fully charged DT Explosion usually knocks Cerberus down. Style Specific Strategies: Trickster: Trickster gets you around the room faster. You can use a dash anytime in place of a roll. If you have level 2 trickster, you can sky star to Cerberus's heads or paw after dodging an attack to connect with a helm breaker. If you have level 3, air trick saves a second or two when traveling from a long distance away from Cerberus. If you're using A&R, then trickster is a bit more useful. Air Trick into Cerberus's face when it's clear, aerial cross -> E&I shot -> aerial cross -> sky star forward -> aerial cross -> E&I -> aerial cross -> air hike -> aerial cross. Well, you get the idea. Trickster can enhance your ability to use aerial cross repeatedly in a short amount of time. Swordmaster: Aerial rave will be very useful against Cerberus's heads. Aerial rave->helm breaker is even better. For A&R, sky dance canceled into (not performing the last spinning attack) aerial cross -> E&I shot -> sky dance (canceled) -> aerial cross with an air hike for when you drop too low. If you have Nevan, I recommend taking Nevan and A&R into this fight with Swordmaster. Knock the ice off of all 3 of Cerb’s heads, jump into the middle head, perform both air slashes with Nevan, then aerial cross, then air slashx2, then air hike and do both moves some more. Jump away to avoid being gnashed or headbutted. The goal with air slash is to hit all 3 heads with each slash. Hack at a paw with A&R to take them down or unleash a fully charged DT explosion during your onslaught of air slashes to knock Cerberus down. Gunslinger: Oh man is this fun. The rapid fire allows you knock off Cerb's ice more quickly while charge shots let you do more damage from a distance while waiting for Cerberus to calm down. Close up, air hiking over his heads and using Rain Storm is very effective for both destroying the Ice Armour and damaging Cerberus. It does more damage than shooting E&I normally. For the other guns, don't use KA's abilities, only shotgun's gunstinger and point blank are useful (on the paw), Artemis' lock on abilities come in a bit handy from a distance, and spiral's gunslinger abilities are good for long range damage. Royal Guard: I recommend not Royal Guarding the Icicle Drop and rolling instead. It is possible to just guard the first icicle easily, however. When the ground starts to frost, guard. You may attempt to take Just guard the rest by watching the ice carefully and using quick reflexes. I’d rather take the minimal damage from guarding them normally or just dodging. The ice balls can be just guarded by...well, waiting for Cerb to finish shooting it out and guarding right before it hits you. O_O The freeze breath can be Just guarded very easily. Guard AFTER (*AFTER*) you see the ground freeze. Once in a while, you'll get two hits: One that is just guarded and one that does *very* minor damage. Guarding his pounce is about reflexes. Don't stand immediately in front of Cerberus, allow yourself some space. The instant he moves from his get-ready-to-pounce stance, hit circle and hope you did it in time. Just guarding the head-butt is simple: once he lowers his head, guard. Paw swipes are easily just guarded if you have quick reflexes: guard when he swipes at you. Guard Million Carats and Crystal as the ice crystals appear. Release on your head of choice during devil trigger for maximum effect. Getting a Just Release on Cerberus is a bit tricky. It's easiest to do against his (head's) physical attacks (pounce, head-butt) while in the air. Releasing on the ground is risky, it sometimes misses Cerb's head. Recommended style: Swordmaster (Nevan’s Air slash) or Trickster (Air trick and Sky Star) ------ J. Gigapede “Zap” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion and Cerberus Guns: E&I - Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Spin - Hurt him too much and he’ll be covered in white electricity that doesn’t damage you. (?) It does, however, mean he’s going to spin. Air hike while he spins to not let him escape. Purple electric balls - Gigapede shoots these from the sides of his body. They home in. Blue lightning balls (disconnected) - The disconnected electric balls attack solo. They shoot lightning bolts straight down at the ground and travel at a set height. The set height is whatever height they are dropped from. Just stay on top of Gigapede or on a ledge. Blue lightning balls (connected) - Two joined lightning balls result in horizontal lightning. Stay on top of Gigapede and you should be fine. Giant Purple orb of DEATH! - Gigapede rarely uses this. He shoots it out of his mouth, so it can’t hit you if you’re on him. It’s very, _very_ easy to dodge. General strategy: When the battle starts, jump on Gigapede’s head and start to combo his head with either Rebellion of Cerberus. Whenever white electricity shocks his body, air hike and once again land on top of him. Continue to combo him (his head as much as possible). Revolver (level 2) is an excellent move to use against Gigapede. Drop off of Gigapede only if he flies into a tunnel. Whenever you have to drop off of him as he enters a tunnel, jump and use Cerberus’s swing (air attack) on the Gigapede’s underside as he goes into the tunnel. Let loose with E&I after he hides in a tunnel till he emerges again and jump on him. Whenever Gigapede shoots blue lightning balls, stay on top of him as best you can. When Gigapede shoots purple electric balls, attacking with alternating Revolver level 2 -> triangle (once) -> Revolver level 2 as quickly as you can in hopes of deflecting the balls back at Gigapede is quite effective. If you’d rather take a safer route, when you see the purple orbs being charged, drop off of Gigapede and knock them back at him with carefully timed hits. It’s easy to tell when to attack the balls. They’ll be right in front of you. To avoid the blue lightning balls, stay on top of him. If you happen to get knocked off of Gigapede or drop down on purpose, follow him to the hole he tunnels into and wait for him. Stay on his head and keep attacking and he’ll go down quickly. Sorry, there’s not much strategy to this fight. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Agni & Rudra and Nevan (having Nevan makes Mission 4 easier) Guns: E&I Extra Tips for Recommended: Use A&R for all comboing purposes. When he shoots purple electric orbs, activate devil trigger and repeat A&R combo 1 (Triangle, T, T, T, T) to knock them easily back at him while taking _minimal_ damage. Style Specific strategies: Trickster: If you fall far from Gigapede, sky star and/or air trick toward him. No effective way for Trickster to be used unless you plan on dodging those orbs instead of hitting them. Swordmaster: Instead of jumping off and knocking the orbs back at Gigapede, you can activate Cerberus’s Ice Age (SM Level 3) when you see Gigapede charging purple orbs and immediately follow it with (Devil Trigger) A&R combo 1 (T, T, T, T, T) for any following orbs. If you have the recommended weapons, use Nevan’s Feedback/Crazy Roll to deflect mad orbs or Jam Session. DT as each move ends to minimize damage. Gunslinger: Nothing new to add to this fight, sorry, just follow the general strategy. If you feel like using gun moves, go for it. Royal Guard: I don’t recommend Just Guarding the purple orbs. Chances are you’ll mess up once and get hit twice. I recommend bringing RG for only one reason: RG canceling. You can hop off of Gigapede, lock on, and knock his purple orbs back by timing the first hit of A&R’s default combo. Triangle, guard cancel, triangle, etc. Recommended Style: Swordmaster (Nevan’s Feedback/Crazy Roll) or Royal Guard (guard cancel) ------ K. Agni and Rudra “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Cerberus and Rebellion Guns: E&I Agni only Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Horizontal swing - Agni says “Seya!” and attacks with a horizontal slash. Short range and long execution time. When you see Agni bring his sword back and say “Seya!” Perform Cerberus’s revolver 2 or windmill to parry or simply roll away. Guard and parry - Agni guards by putting the sword in front of him. Attack him 3 times while he is guarding and he will parry your attack. Stab - Agni says “It’s over!” and stabs while sliding forward slightly. Has a long range. When you hear him say “It’s over!” either dodge or perform revolver level 2 to parry it. Running slash - Agni runs toward Dante and slashes horizontally. Jump over him or roll. Forward tumbling sword slam - Agni jumps into the air and tumbles forward while holding his sword in front of him then slams it into the ground as he lands. Roll out of the way. Spinning sword jump - Agni jumps into the air at an angle while spinning and cutting the air around him. Agni only performs this when Dante remains airborne for a long time. Don’t abuse E&I hovering. Flaming sword - Agni stands in place, roars, and thrusts the sword into the air. The sword is covered in flames which makes his attacks stronger and allows him to perform Crawler. Crawler - Agni spins the flaming sword, then hops into the air and plunges the sword into the ground. This shoots a line of flame that crawls along the ground. This can be dodged by rolling, jumping, or simply not standing straight in front of Agni. Rudra only attacks/moves and how to counter them: Uppercut slash - Rudra makes a weird noise “Er!” and uppercuts with the blade. This has a long execution time. Parry with revolver level 2 or windmill or roll/jump away. Guard and parry - Rudra guards by putting the sword in front of him. Attack him 3 times while he is guarding and he will parry your attack. Stab - Rudra says “Eat this!” and stabs forward. Treat like Agni’s stab. Running slash - See Agni’s Forward tumbling sword slam - See Agni’s Spinning sword jump - See Agni’s Windy sword - Rudra thrusts his sword hand into the air and says something like “Errrrrrr” in an increasing pitch (it gets higher as it gets longer) and his sword glows with the power of wind. It allows him to perform Tornado. Tornado - Rudra hops into the air and kind of hovers there then slams the sword into the ground creating a tornado around him. Just don’t stand near him. Agni and Rudra combined moves: Running formation - Occasionally, both brothers will run off into designated corners of the room and follow it by running toward Dante and either perform the running slash or the forward sword slam. 90% of the time it’s the forward sword slam. Super Agni/Super Rudra attacks/moves and how to counter them: Flaming and windy swords - The swords are always glowing. Super Agni or Rudra can perform any attack without having to charge the swords first. Agni’s Horizontal swing - Same as before but higher damage. Agni’s Stab - Same as before but higher damage. Rudra’s uppercut - Same as before but higher damage. Rudra’s stab - Same as before but higher damage. Forward tumbling sword slam - Same as before but with higher damage. Spinning sword jump - Same as before but higher damage. Jet stream - A running dual slash. This slash is like the running slashes, but much stronger. Roll or jump out of the way. Crawling tornado (Rudra only) - The demon host holds up both swords while spinning Agni. He hops into the air and slams both swords down creating a tornado and a crawling line of fire. Stay away from him and don’t stand directly in front of him. Flame whip (Rudra only) - The demon host spins both swords and puts them hilt to hilt. He then whips them around creating circles of flame around him. He does this 5 times. The flaming circles have limited range, so running away from him will be enough to avoid them. Fire at him while he’s showing off his pyrotechnics. Super Crawler (Agni only) - The demon host holds up both swords while spinning Agni. He hopes into the air and slams the swords into the ground shooting a super form of crawler. Get the hell out of the way. Flaming wind (Agni only) - The demon host spins both swords and puts them together (hilt to hilt). He swings the sword throwing flaming wind at Dante. Dodge it by air hiking over the first wave, then hover with E&I until he shoots the second wave. Drop to the ground allowing the second wave pass over your head. Repeat to dodge third and fourth waves. General Strategy: Here are the attacks that best parry the brother’s slashes: Three parries (normal mode) makes them lose the sword and they kneel there begging to be hurt. Revolver Level 2 - I’m sure by now all of you are tired of hearing people say, “Dude, just spam Revolver 2, it’s so easy! lol!” while you’re getting knocked out of the air. Spamming Revolver 2 is not a good idea, but timing it well is a good idea. Don’t try to Revolver parry stabs, you’ll get knocked out of the air like a rag doll. When a brother slashes at you, wait a couple of seconds before initiating Revolver. If you learn the timing of their slashes, then initiate Revolver only slightly before the sword would connect with Dante. When you get deflected, perform a Swing in the air and repeat the parry. Cerberus attack 1 - This is the move that happens when you press triangle once on the ground. This only works if you know the timing of each brother’s slash (which is the same for both). Lock onto a brother as he is about to slash at you. Just as the attack is about to hit Dante, press triangle. You will deflect the attack while staying on the ground. It kind of looks like a just guard when done correctly. Windmill - Yes, windmill. Windmill has a slight wind up, so it’s a little slower than Revolver and Cerberus attack 1. The benefit, however, is that the timing is easier and it covers you from all sides. Even though the attack is in front of Dante, it will parry an attack from behind or from the sides. Mash this move to make it last longer Helm breaker - This is Rebellion’s easiest parry. When a brother is slashing at you, jump and air hike if you have to. Land in the slash with a helm breaker. When fighting Agni (the red guy), Cerberus will be your best friend. He’s fire based and he’s weak to ice. When fighting Rudra, Cerberus will provide more protection while Rebellion will do more damage overall. When you fight the brothers, they start by doing from-the-corner-double- forward-tumbling-sword-slam. Fire at them as they come toward you and roll to the side as each one lands. Stinger to one and combo a little bit. Just a little because the brothers will start attacking. While you’re fighting, try to stay away from the corners of the room. The camera goes to hell when you’re fighting in the corner and it’s easy to lose track of the other brother. You have three options: Concentrate on keeping both brothers’ health close together so that you don’t have to face a super Agni/Rudra, concentrate on Agni then kill super Rudra, or concentrate on Rudra and kill super Agni. The brothers can hurt one another. Rely on this for a lot of damage. The brothers can guard your attacks with their swords (putting them in front of them covering their chests). After blocking three or four attacks, they will push guard you and your attack will be interrupted. They are vulnerable after the push guard. If a brother is guarding, keep attacking anyway. After the push guard, let loose. Always listen for the other brother. If you’re fighting one brother and the other brother says anything (“Eat this!” “It’s over!”), then jump out of the way. One brother will stab the other. Come down on one of them with a helm breaker. When you knock one of the brother’s swords out of their hands, listen VERY CAREFULLY for the other brother. If you hear him say anything, jump out of the way. Drop down with a helm breaker and continue. It’s possible to parry attacks of one brother while you’re attacking the other one. Revolver does this well. If you’re confident, you can spam revolver on an unarmed brother while the other attacks you. You can knock the other sword away while still damaging the other brother. If you ever hear a whirling sound and you can’t see the other brother, roll. He’s doing a forward tumbling sword slam. If you’re paying attention to the sounds the brothers make, not abusing E&I hovering, and not spamming Revolver mindlessly, then this should be easy. Fighting Super Agni/Rudra: If you’re going to fight one of the super brothers, I recommend killing Agni first since he goes down faster (he’s elementally weak to Cerberus) and he loses his elemental weakness when he gains Rudra’s power. The first thing you should do is ROLL! RIGHT NOW! ROLL! At the end of the little scene where the two swords join, the host jumps forward. He already started a forward tumbling sword slam and Dante’s just watching it happen. Fighting this super brother will change a few things: You only have to worry about one person, it takes twice as many parries to knock his swords away, his attacks do more damage, and he has new moves. Stay close to super brother. This will discourage him from using Jetstream and his elemental moves. Basically, attack him and he’ll start guarding. Keep attack and he’ll push guard. Keep attacking and he’ll start to slash, parry, parry, parry, parry, parry, parry, and he loses his sword. Wail on him with Rebellion. Repeat. If he does do an elemental move, which will be less often if you stay close to him, run away and ready yourself. Read the attack info above, please. When it’s safe, stinger to him quickly so he doesn’t Jetstream you in the face. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Cerberus and Rebellion Guns: E&I and Spiral Extra tips for Recommended: Same strategy except as they run to the corner, switch-cancel fire Spiral. Style Specific strategies: Trickster: Dash instead of rolling since it’s faster. Air trick/sky star/dash toward them if you accidentally run too far or if you don’t want to use attacks to get in close. One last tip: locking on a brother, sky starring past him, then using helm breaker on his back is pretty damn effective. Swordmaster: Knock the swords out of their hands like usual and throw in a Real Impact for monster damage if you have time. Gunslinger: Replace Spiral with Shotgun. Knock the swords out of their hands like usual and spam Gunstinger -> fireworks -> gunstinger etc. If the other brother starts to move in, Revolver level 2. There is also a way to spam Gunstinger, fireworks, and normal blasts the entire fight without taking damage. 2 or 3 unguarded shotgun blasts will stun Agni or Rudra opening them up to a gunstinger -> fireworks -> gunstinger. Fireworks sometimes stuns both bosses. Using fireworks and shotgun blasts to open the bosses up to gunstinger fireworks -> gunstinger is a bit of a risky strategy. It is, however, just as effective as it is risky. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to stun them at will and still avoid all the attacks. The first hit of gunstinger can parry in case you gunstinger into an attack. If you go with the shotgun spam strategy, don’t forget to bring Cerberus anyway. It’s still the easiest way to knock their swords away. Royal Guard: Probably the best style for this fight if you can use it well. To guard Agni’s horizontal swing and Rudra’s uppercut, Just guard right before it hits you. The attacks take longer to execute than you think. The stabs can be Just guarded in the same fashion except the stabs come out faster. To Just Guard the forward tumbling sword slams, hop into the air and meet them with a guard before they hit the ground. To Just guard crawlers, guard it as it reaches you. To Just guard the tornado, jump and guard just as Rudra’s sword hits the ground. To just guard the spinning sword jump...wait, you should never see this attack. Just Guard Super Agni/Super Rudra’s attacks similarly. For crawling tornado, run behind him as he spins the fire sword and Just guard the tornado. I recommend Roll guarding the flaming wind and flame whip attacks. All dash slashes including Jetstream can be just guarded by guarding just as the boss reaches you. This is tricky, I recommend dodging it. Release when you charged maximum energy for your Royal Guard level. Release when a boss is swordless or Just Release as the bosses are doing spinning jump slashes from the corner. Jump guard the first one and Release as the second one is landing. You should get an easy Just Release and you’ll hit both bosses. Don’t try to just release against Horizontal swings, uppercuts, and stabs. Sometimes it results in a parry where neither you nor the boss takes damage and your built up rage goes to waste. Fire RG canceled Spiral shots when they run to their corners. Recommended Style: Royal Guard or Trickster (shotgun) ------ L. Vergil 1 “This may be fun.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion and Agni & Rudra Guns: E&I and Shotgun or Artemis Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Air Trick - Vergil has a better version of Dante's Air trick. He has an unlimited range with it and can teleport anywhere, not just to an opponent. Royal Guard - He has a better version of Royal Guard, too. He lifts his forearm in a blocking stance. The guard has a deflection effect for about 3 seconds. This means if you attack him while his arm is even slightly raised still, your attack will be deflected and you will be stunned. Sword flicker - Blocks gunfire of any sort by spinning his sword quickly in front of him. Combo 1 - Two vertical slashes, one up, one down. Dodge it by staying away. Jump/roll away if you have to. Stinger towards him (as many times as you need to reach him) and go crazy on him. After he grunts and stumbles don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, shoot him a couple times with E&I, then quickly switch-cancel fire your other gun once or twice and be ready to dodge. Combo 2 - Two sheath attacks, horizontal slash. The horizontal slash has great range. Jump/roll away. Treat it like combo 1. Combo 3 - Two sheath attacks, slash upward, slash downward. Treat it like combo 1 and jump/roll away. Dash slash (he one like Kurow's super from Project Justice. ) aka "DIE!" - He dashes forward. Kind of like a slower stinger with less range. Jump away and stinger into him, then switch-cancel fire your spare gun with E&I once or twice. Often times he does this a couple times in a row. Be ready to dodge after firing. Purple orb "Hm!" - Vergil takes a slightly bent over stance with his hand on his Yamato. He then quickly slashes creating a purple orb of "slashing." This homes in on Dante. Sometimes he only shoots one, sometimes he shoots several. It doesn't matter because the second you see him take the purple orb throwing stance, stinger into him and combo until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. Instead, do the switch-cancel firing bit again. General Strategy: When the battle starts, Vergil is far away. Fire Ebony and Ivory a couple times. This annoys him and he’ll close in to perform a combo or dash slash. After any combo, attack Vergil as quickly as possible. Stinger is your best friend in this fight. If you read my counters carefully, you'd have noticed that whenever Vergil stumbles (he grunts), you should not attack with melee weapons, instead you should tack on extra damage with guns. If you ever take too long to counter Vergil, he may either take the hit and step back stumbling and grunting or royal guard your attack. If you prefer Agni and Rudra over Rebellion, then switch weapons when Vergil is stunned. They are just about equal in strength, so which weapon is utilized does not affect the damage inflicted. This is not a challenging fight if you know what to expect. Whenever you see Vergil even start to take the purple orb stance, stinger into him and go crazy on him. Whenever Vergil performs his dash slash, jump/roll away then stinger into him. Follow up with gunfire. In fact, anytime Vergil stumbles and grunts, damage him with some gunfire. Sometimes, after he grunts, he teleports away. Do what you would do anytime he teleports: get ready for his next attack. Play defensively and this is an easy fight. By defensively, I mean counter every attack he throws at you. :) Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf and Nevan Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Extra tips for Recommended: Switch-cancel fire one or two KA shots whenever Vergil stumbles backwards grunting. Instead of Stinger, air hiked killer bees can be used. They’re stronger anyway. Combo with Beowulf when Vergil is stunned and open to combos. It inflicts more damage. When Vergil takes the purple orb stance, air hike toward him and killer bee his face. Proceed to kick the crap out of him until he stumbles back which should then be followed by gunfire. Use DT whenever possible. To inflict maximum damage in one combo, I suggest using the Killer Bee bounce. What is this? This is what happens when Dante jumps off of his enemy as he connects with a killer bee. It allows for rapid-fire Killer Bee attacks. Why would you want to use this? Killer bee inflicts more damage than any other non-style specific attack. The easiest way to accomplish this is to be very close to Vergil. Once you Killer bee/straight to Vergil, jump -> air hike -> killer bee -> enemy hike (jump off enemy) -> killer bee -> enemy hike -> killer bee...etc. This may take some practice. The killer bee bounce can also be initiated from a close range Rising Dragon. After landing twelve quick Beowulf attacks (hopefully almost all killer bees), switch to Nevan, send Vergil stumbling with a Reverb Shock, and then follow up with rocket fire. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the amount of damage you can inflict in one round. Style Specific strategies: Trickster: Trickster's dash, sky star, and air trick abilities augment your mobility and increase your chances of countering Vergil. I recommend not using air trick during the purple orb attacks. You never know when you will accidentally teleport into one of his orbs or even a combo. Dashing and sky star can augment your dodging skills a little, but are better used as catching up to Vergil as he misses a combo. Swordmaster: Dance Macabre is fun if you have SM level 3, but don't start the Million Stab. Don’t attempt Real impact in this fight if you have Beowulf, however. Vergil will not allow Dante time to charge the uppercut. None of the Swordmaster skills are ideal for this fight except for stylish points. Gunslinger: This style doesn't add too much to this fight unless you switch either the KA or E&I for the shotgun. If so, then you can gunstinger -> shotgun shot -> gunstinger or you can gunstinger -> fireworks -> gunstinger after he stumbles (grunts, steps back) for extra damage before jumping away from him. Gunstinger counts as a projectile attack and not a melee attack so he can't royal guard it. I think this style lets shotgun fans use the shotgun for extra damage in place of the Kalina Ann. After all, not everyone likes the Kalina Ann. Royal Guard: You don't need to dodge combos anymore. Just Guard his combos. To Just Guard the helm breakers, jump in the air to meet him and air Just Guard. After charging all available rage orbs, Just Release next time he tries to combo you. Try the DT explosion + Just Release and watch his life disappear. ;]I recommend you still dodge the purple orbs and the dash slash, but you can try to Just Guard them if you like; they are tricky to Just Guard. The dash slash must be guarded JUST as he reaches you and the purple orbs must be blocked about one second after they are formed (listen carefully to the sound, the sound drops in pitch when you should guard.) When guarding combos, keep in mind that his sheath attacks are quick and the sword attacks are slower. Don’t over anticipate the sword attacks and don’t under anticipate the sheath blows. Recommended style: Trickster or Royal Guard ------ M. Leviathan Heart “Watch out for hiding Gigapedes.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Agni&Rudra or Cerberus and Rebellion Guns: E&I and Shotgun Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Hell Envy spawn - Hell Envies continually enter the heart’s chamber. As you eliminate them, more spawn. They only have one attack, however: a slow, obvious slash. Orb steal - Whenever the red lung has health, the red lung will absorb all orbs released by fallen Hell Envies. If you want orbs, knock out the red lung. Devil Trigger drain - If you don’t attack the blue lung for a while, it will begin to drain your Devil Trigger. If you want to keep your Devil Trigger, attack the blue orb. Purple orb shot - The main heart chamber shoots slow moving, homing, purple orbs. They look electric to me. Avoid them by backing far away from the heart or by constantly moving around the shots. The heart performs this attack after when the red lung is knocked out and occasionally when Dante hit the heart’s shield. Red Laser - The main heart fires a laser that reaches the wall across the room. The beam either starts in the left corner or the right corner then travels to the other side of the room several times at varying speeds. This is performed when the blue lung is knocked out and occasionally when Dante hits the heart’s shield. An easy way to dodge this is to run up to the heart and jump. Stay in the air with Aerial cross/swing -> E&I shot -> Aeiral cross/swing -> E&I shot. Air hike when you need to, don’t land until the attack is over. General strategy: This is easy, trust me. Run to the blue lung and air hike ONTO it. Yes, air hike toward it and you should land on a little ledge. You’ll know you found it when Dante kind of stutter steps. He lands for a fraction of a second then falls off. Watch for the animation change carefully. Why is this important? Whenever you land on anything, you get your air hike back. So here’s how you beat this thing EASILY without even having to think much. Jump up and air hike toward the blue lung and use helm breaker landing on the ledge, then air hike to the lung and use helm breaker landing on the ledge, then air hike to the lung and use helm breaker landing on the ledge, etc. I’m serious. If you don’t like the helm breaker, then air hike up, land on the ledge, aerial cross after falling off, air hike up, land on the ledge, fall off, aerial cross, air hike up, etc. The first time you kill the lung, the heart’s shield goes up and the center is a giant green zit. Stinger or Jetstream into the heart, activate Devil Trigger, then switch to Agni & Rudra/Cerberus and wail on the heart. A&R have a sweeping attack, so if Envies try to sneak up on you, redirect the attack to hit them a couple times and knock them away. Yes, rebellion can knock them away, too, but A&R does it a little better. If you’re using Cerberus, use good old, reliable revolver level 2. Helm breaker onto the ledge, E&I shots, Aerial Cross, air hike up to the ledge, air hike, helm breaker onto the ledge, E&I shots, aerial cross. I personally prefer the simple way. Anyway, the second time you kill the blue lung, the heart will open and fire a laser. Stand in the middle of the room and jump over the laser when it comes close. E&I hovering gives you a bigger chance of dodging. Make sure you land in time to jump again. The heart is vulnerable when shooting lasers, so shoot it while dodging O_o. The laser obliterates all the Envies that appear. Afterwards, the green zit shows up again. Use the Devil trigger on the heart whenever possible. Soon the lasers become dual lasers. Again, stand in the middle and jump when they come close. If you see the purple orb attack, just run away. Yea, there’s a way to get red orbs. If you really need the orbs that badly, or if you want that S rank, kill the red lung once in a while. It doesn’t have a ledge, so this one’s a little trickier. Attack the red lung with aerial attack of your choice, then combo it from the ground. If envies crowd you, knock them away with a few attacks and resume attacking the red lung. When you’re done killing the red lung, you’ll probably have no Devil Trigger left. Oh well, that’s the trade for collecting red orbs. The heart will release the purple orb thing which you should easily avoid by, well, staying away from the shots. I still prefer concentrating on the blue lung. I didn’t mention the shotgun at all, so why did I list it above? Use it to knock one or two Envies away quickly. Try jump-canceling (tap jump, shoot, land, tap jump, shoot, land, tap jump, etc.) to knock a crowd away before they even get close. If you’re using Cerberus instead of A&R, replace Aerial cross with Swing. That and use revolver level 2 on the heart. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf and Agni&Rudra/Nevan (Swordmaster) Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Extra tips for Recommended: Kalina Ann knocks away all Hell Envies that try to crowd you. If you get crowded, rocket to the face(s). Since you have the Kalina Ann now, the envies are a little easier to manage. If you choose Beowulf, the ledge is even easier to find. Air hike toward the blue lung, killer bee, air hike, killer bee, air hike, killer bee, air hike, etc. If you chose Beowulf, use it on the heart and fire a rocket at the envies if you get crowded. Style Specific Strategies: Trickster: Jump -> Aerial cross -> E&I shot -> Sky star -> Aerial cross -> E&I shot -> air hike -> Aerial cross -> E&I shot -> aerial cross -> E&I shot -> aerial cross -> Air trick -> Aerial cross Basically, stay in the air as long as possible and perform as many aerial crosses as possible. This chain (or a similar chain, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same of course) can be used on either lung effectively. Other than that, it’s just the same old trickster. Swordmaster: Beowulf and Agni&Rudra or Nevan. Why? Because Hammer, Aerial cross, and Air slash own you. When the heart does laser, run up to it, jump, and alternate between aerial cross/air slash and hammer. These moves make taking the lungs out easier, too. Beowulf and Nevan: Jump -> Hammer -> Air slash x2 -> Hammer -> Air Slash x2 -> Air hike -> Air slash x2 -> hammer, etc. This can take out either lung quickly without finding the blue lung’s ledge. Attack the heart core with a quick straight/killer bee into real impact. DT during real impact for maximum effect. If the Envies crowd you, use Nevan’s Feedback/crazy roll and Kalina Ann to stun them. Gunslinger: Got Artemis? KA and Artemis for this one. Pick a lung run to it, acid rain it. If the envies come close, run to the other lung and Acid Rain it. When one dies, Acid rain the heart until the Envies come close, then knock them back with your Kalina Ann and continue to assault the heart. Heart hides. Acid rain a lung. -yawn- Royal Guard: Not too useful here. If you want to try Just Guarding the laser or purple orb shots, go for it. It’s not a good idea, but you can try it if you’re daring. If you’re set on using Release during this fight, charge your rage by Just Guarding the envies. Once you’re nice and charged, go kill a lung, DT release on the heart, then tear it apart with your weapon of choice. Once again, cover Dante’s backside with A&R or Rebellion. Recommended style: Swordmaster (Aerial moves) or Gunslinger (Artemis and Kalina Ann) ------ N. Nevan “Don’t you like me?” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Cerberus and Rebellion Guns: E&I and Spiral If you don’t have Spiral yet, you missed it. In the bridge area outside the waterfall, there’s a divinity statue and a combat adjudicator. Nearby, there are broken pillars, one has a red orb on it. Climb the broken pillars and you’ll find a large platform. In the far corner is lying the Spiral. Nevan’s Attack/moves and how to counter them: Bat shield - She shields herself with bats. Attack her (a lot) to kill the bats and break her shield. When it’s broken, a bubble animation surrounds her. Teleport - She disappears in darkness and bats then reappears somewhere else. Small electric bat balls (light purple) - Nevan says “How’s this?” and fires several electric balls at you. The more bats in her shield, the more balls she fires. Run/roll around her to dodge them all. Large electric bat ball (dark purple) - Nevan says “Don’t you like me?” gathers dark purple electricity in front of her, and fires one large, damaging bat ball. Roll around her to dodge it. Electricity column(s) - Nevan says “Now you will become tired!” and then says “Ha!” and shoots white electricity into the ground that gathers under Dante and shoots up in columns. She creates anywhere from 1-3 (4?) columns. Keep moving to dodge them. Shadow kick - Nevan does a really slow (I think) back handspring while laughing maniacally (“Hm hm hm hm!”). She causes shadow spikes to travel forward from her toward Dante. Air hike away and hover with E&I to avoid this. Whirling Dervish - Nevan says “Get ready!” and spins around creating blades of shadow around her. Walk away from her and watch her dance. Shadow Dome - When Nevan is stunned on the ground, after you’ve beaten on her enough, her eyes turn red, laughs, and she envelopes herself in a dome of shadow. When her eyes turn red, jump away. Drain kiss - Nevan breaks her own shield, says “You cannot escape me!” then moves toward you with her arms outstretched. Jump or air hike and hover with E&I when she comes close. When you hear her say “Hm hm hm hm...Hm hm hm hm” drop down on her with Helm breaker then combo her with Cerberus. Either that or activate devil trigger when she’s close and Combo the hell out of her with Cerberus. Remember, she still does that Shadow dome thing. Standing in the corner of the room attacks: Electrify the floor and Electric dome - Nevan creates a dome around her and electrifies the floor for a couple seconds. Electric bat beams - Nevan shoots beams of electricity either horizontally or vertically. This can be telegraphed by “Are you enjoying yourself?” Either run around the attacks (they don’t go all the way across the room), air hike over them, or roll through them. When she does horizontal ones, you can jump over the low ones and stand under the high ones. She always alternates between low and high. General Strategy: When the battle starts out, immediately start Switch-cancel firing Spiral. Dodge attacks as necessary. If she says “Don’t you like me?” Make SURE you move because this is one of her most damaging attacks. It’s quick, too. If she does the electric column move (“Now you will become tired!”), when the last column of energy shoots up, Stinger her and then hit her a couple more times, then run away when she says “Don’t you like me?” Most of the time, she follows the electric columns with the dark purple bat attack. Just make sure to stop your attacks in time to dodge. For now, she won’t use the Whirling dervish or shadow kick much. Whenever she does, however, stinger her and combo when you’re done dodging. Always be ready to jump/air hike away, however. Whenever her bat shield gets thin, make sure you’re near her while attacking. If you’re too far when her shield breaks, she’ll just recover and regenerate the shield while teleporting. When her shield breaks, Stinger into her then combo with Cerberus. Dante can land 3-4 hits of Cerb’s normal combo, a Level 2 revolver, and windmill without devil trigger before having to jump away and avoid the dome attack. Devil trigger Dante can land even more. When she’s stunned, I recommend using the Devil Trigger. After you hurt her enough (take off at least 25% of her life), she’ll teleport to a corner of the room. She teleports twice. Lock onto her and switch-cancel fire Spiral until you have to dodge. She’ll electrify the floor immediately after teleporting. She does this move twice sometimes. Be ready to E&I hover over it. She’ll follow this with Electric bat beams a few times (usually 3). Just watch them and dodge them accordingly (jump over them, walk between them, roll through them, whatever works for you). When she’s done doing that, she’ll come out and do either the shadow kick or whirling dervish. Dodge whichever move she does, stinger into her, then abuse Cerberus’s revolver level 2, windmill, and combo 1. She’ll stand there and let her bats take all the damage If Dante is in Devil Trigger, it is possible to knock her shield down after one cycle of this. If not, it will take two cycles. Once in a while, she does shadow kick followed by a whirling dervish at the end of the cycle. This will be easy to spot. While you’re performing stinger to her, she’ll say “Get ready!” Jump away and stinger again when she’s done. After you hurt her even more (75% of her life is depleted), she’ll go back to using the attacks from the beginning of the fight followed by a drain kiss. Don’t bother shooting her, she’ll break her shield for you. Usually she performs the light purple electric bat balls attack followed by a teleport, followed by a drain kiss. Jump into the air when she jumps close and hover with E&I. After you hear her laugh twice (“Hm hm hm hm...Hm hm hm hm”), drop on her head with helm breaker then switch to Cerberus and combo her like before. Again, watch out for the shadow dome. If you have spare Devil Trigger, you can activate it when she gets close and immediately start comboing her with Cerberus. Game over, Nevan. During the first two stages of the fight, whenever you’re not dodging and you’re not close enough to hit her, you should be either firing E&I or switch- cancel firing Spiral. Whenever she does the whirling dervish, stand right outside of the effect area and switch cancel Spiral. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf and Cerberus Guns: E&I and Spiral or Kalina Ann Follow the same general tactics. Use Beowulf’s killer bee and straight to get in close and Revolver level 2 to take out bats (when it’s safe to be close). Besides that, the same Spiral canceling technique will work well. Kalina Ann will function similarly, but kills more bats with each shot. If using Kalina Ann, whenever Nevan does the whirling dervish, stand right outside of it and Kalina Ann cancel. Style Specific strategies - Trickster: Same old trickster, same old tricks. Use trickster’s skills to make dodging easier and to close in faster. Swordmaster: When comboing her with Cerberus, before she starts the shadow dome move, you can use Ice Age. During the first part of the battle, you can stinger into her after the electric columns attack then perform ice age to do damage and avoid the dark purple bat attack. If you’re using Beowulf, I have two words for you: Real Impact. Stinger into her when she’s stunned, then go for it. Gunslinger: This makes your E&I shots go faster and allows for charge shots. Spiral’s gunslinger Trickshots are powerful and are about as strong as Kalina Ann’s rockets and Spiral can switch-cancel fire quicker. Kalina Ann’s Gunslinger moves aren’t ideal for this fight. Royal Guard: This is a strange fight for a Royal Guardsman. You can guard her projectiles just as they reach you, the columns just as they rise, and the shadow dome just as it rises as well. I don’t recommend guarding the shadow kick or whirling dervish. Release on her in Devil Trigger mode while she is stunned and shield-less. Recommended Style: Gunslinger (charge shots, rapid fire, Trickshot, Kalina Ann) or Swordmaster (Real Impact.) ------ O. Beowulf “It’s the stench of betrayal.” Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Rebellion Guns: E&I Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Punch combo - Beowulf swings with his left hand, then his right hand, then slams his left fist into the ground. Either roll through each punch or Air hike as he performs the first punch and hover with E&I. If you end up behind him before the third punch, he’ll stop the combo. Stomp - Beowulf lifts his foot and stomps. This is a quick move. Roll away from his stomping foot. It’s always his right foot. Turning punch - Beowulf will perform this if you stay behind him too long. If Beowulf stands still while you’re behind him for a while, he’s going to do this move. It’s pretty obvious to see. He pulls his right arm into his chest as it starts to glow and then swings while turning. Roll through the attack or air hike over it. Blind swing - If you hit Beowulf in the eye enough times, he gets stunned, but swings blindly with his left hand. There are actually two punches in this attack: swinging to the right, then swinging to the left. They hit in quick succession. Air hike over it, roll away from it, or run behind him and attack. Eye beam - He shots a white beam of light from his eye. It’s very quick and hard to telegraph. It’s easy to avoid though: Don’t jump so much. Don’t helm break more than twice in a row. He only uses it if you are in front of his face (in the air) many times in a short period of time. He usually shoots this over Dante’s head. Insanity Drive - Beowulf stands up straight, throws his arms open, tilts his head back, spreads his wings, and surrounds himself in a column of light proclaiming “I WILL KILL YOU!” It does damage during a sound after he declares Dante’s death. Roll/run away. He only performs this attack a maximum of twice a fight. He stumbles, cries out in pain (sounds like “GWARRR!”), and then performs this attack. Insanity Drive unlocks Beowulf’s powers. The first one unlocks his Run, Body flop, Corner cage stomp, corner cage hook, corner cage uppercut, and volcano. The second Insanity Drive unlocks his Zodiac wing attack and his other Cage stomp. Run - Beowulf runs around the room. Getting in his way will hurt. Beowulf gets down on all fours, growls, then runs. Get out of the way. O_o He doesn’t use this maneuver until after performing Insanity Drive once. Body flop - Beowulf gets down on all fours, makes a sound similar to “Hm!” and rockets into the air with his arms spread. This reminds me a lot of Zangief’s body flop. When you see him on all fours and hear him say “Hm!” Roll the heck away. Corner Cage stomp - Beowulf stomps 5 times and summons weird looking cages. When he performs this, he runs into a corner, cage stomps, and cages fall one at a time around him in Dante’s direction. Corner Cage hook - Beowulf hits the cage with a left hook in Dante’s direction. As far as I know, the hook can’t hit Dante. You can stand in front of Beowulf and wail on him while he does this and he won’t touch you. Corner Cage uppercut - Beowulf hits the cage with a right uppercut in Dante’s direction. This one hurts Dante. Pay attention to which arm Beowulf moves during the cage sequence. If it’s his left hand, keep attacking. If it’s his right hand, roll to the side, THEN keep attacking. Volcano - Beowulf’s right hand glows as he exclaims “CRUSH YOU!” or something. He slams his hand into the ground as he says what I think is “YOU!” and a large column of light erupts around him. It doesn’t do damage until after you see it, but once you hear him, run away. Cage stomp - Beowulf stomps 5 times and summons cages. He doesn’t stand in the corner and the cages drop where Dante is when the cranking sound starts. When you hear the cranking sound, roll. Zodiac wing - Beowulf extends his wings and charges for a couple seconds. He fires MANY zodiac light balls at Dante and Dante takes major damage...Unless he’s behind Beowulf. If you never stray far from Beowulf, avoiding this attack should be easy: run behind him. General Strategy: Beowulf can be taken down by 10 minutes of E&I fire, but that’s no fun, now is it? When the battle starts out, get to him as soon as possible. May I recommend a few stingers? Combo with Rebellion (use Combo 1 - T, T, T and High Time (long) -> Helm breaker -> Stinger alternately or throw in random stingers and helm breakers) until he starts any move. Dodge the punches, then rush right back in with a stinger or helm breaker depending on how you dodged them. Continue to combo. Whenever he tries to stomp (he picks up his foot, it’s obvious), roll to one side and continue to combo. If you blind him (hit him in the eye), roll to your left and combo him from there. Rolling to your left will put you out of range of his blind swing. Keep comboing him till he does another combo or stomp, dodge, etc. If you’re ever behind him, combo him like mad until you see him pull his right arm into his chest with his arm glowing with light. Get ready to roll through or air hike over the turning punch. Shortly (after losing about 25% of his life), he will stumble, make a weird noise (“Gwarr!”), and stand there for a second or two. Get a couple more hits in, then run away because here comes the Insanity Drive. “I WILL KILL YOU!” Beowulf will run off into a corner. As soon as he runs off, stinger toward him till you reach him. Roll away from his right foot as he stomps and combo the heck out of him. Keep comboing him through his left hook and don’t worry about the cages falling on Dante’s head. Since you’re almost on top of Beowulf in the corner, they can’t hit you. When he’s in the corner, the only thing you have to worry about is his RIGHT hand. If he starts the right uppercut, roll to the side then keep comboing. After he punches 5 cages, he’ll stop the cage sequence. He’ll start using Volcano (“CRUSH YOU!”), his punch moves, and his single stomp. If you see Beowulf put his right hand behind him, he’s probably about to say “CRUSH YOU!” and perform a volcano. Just run away when you see him start and stinger back to him as the light fades. Beowulf shouldn’t last much longer than the cage sequence before he performs another Insanity Drive (after losing at least 50% of his life.) Remember how this goes? He will stumble, make a weird noise (“Gwarr!”), and stand there for a second or two. Get a couple more hits in, then run away because here comes the Insanity Drive. “I WILL KILL YOU!” Beowulf will again run off into a corner. Do the same exact thing as before: Stinger to him, roll away from his right foot, and combo the heck out of him. Only roll to avoid his right uppercut and combo him through the rest. When he’s done with the corner sequence, he’ll start doing the punch moves, volcano, zodiac wing, stomp, and the other cage stomp. When he unfolds his wings, run behind him and combo him more. If he does the cage stomp, roll whenever you hear the cranking sound. Keep comboing and dodging as normal besides that. Beowulf goes down in no time. Use your devil trigger whenever possible or whenever necessary. If you have Devil Trigger when Beowulf runs to the corner, activate it and combo relentlessly (except to dodge uppercuts) for maximum damage. Don’t let Beowulf get away from you. His size may be intimidating, but he’s very easy to control. Staying close to him limits him to his punches, volcano, and stomps. This renders his zodiac wing useless. In fact, if you’re always close to him, Zodiac wing helps you. Run behind him and combo him. Staying close also keeps him from using the annoying run and body flop attacks. You can knock the cages at Beowulf, but it’s too much trouble. Just stay on him. Style Specific strategies: Trickster: Again, same old trickster. Use trickster to augment our dodging skills. Use the dash instead of the roll. Use stinger to get close to Beowulf instead of trickster’s moves. Swordmaster: This doesn’t help much unless you want to use Aerial Rave. If you brought Cerberus, you can use Ice Age to guard against most Beowulf’s attacks...but why would you want to? It doesn’t do much damage to Beowulf. You can use sword pierce to knock the pillars back at Beowulf, but you wouldn’t need to since you’d be right in front of him, now wouldn’t you? Swordmaster gives you Aerial Rave, that’s all you need with this style. Gunslinger: Sorry gunslinger fans. If you came to this battle with gunslinger, I recommend not using any of the style moves. Royal Guard: Mmm...Complete Beowulf ownage. Guard the attacks as follows and Just Release in Devil Trigger whenever you have 3 full RG spheres. To Just Release, replace any guard below with a release. Punch combo - Guard the first punch as it gets to Dante and jump and guard to meet each following punch. Stomp - Guard as he stomps his foot down. Turning punch - Get ready to guard as Beowulf is turning. Jump and meet his arm with a guard. Blind swing - Guard the first just as it reaches Dante, then guard the second a fraction of a second later. Eye beam - If you never make him do it, you don’t have to worry about it, do you? Insanity Drive - “I WILL KILL YOU!” After he says this, a weird sound is heard. Guard when you hear this sound. Run - Don’t guard. Body flop - Don’t guard. Corner Cage stomp - Guard the 5 stomps then continue attacking. Corner Cage hook - Just keep attacking, don’t bother to guard. Corner Cage uppercut - Guard as his fist passes his leg. Volcano - Guard a fraction of a second after you see the light erupt. Cage stomp - Guard the 5 stomps and dodge the falling cages. Zodiac wing - GET BEHIND HIM! Recommended style: Royal Guard (guard cancel and above list) ------ P. Geryon “Let’s play chicken.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion Guns: E&I Attacks/moves in arena and how to counter them: Ghost flame - Geryon covers himself and his carriage in a damaging ghostly flame. Jump over him. Wall pass - Geryon and his carriage run through the wall and emerge from another wall. Carriage spike - His carriage has spikes sticking out of the wheels. Avoid the wheels. Trample - If Geryon runs over Dante, he gets trampled. Don’t stand in front of Geryon when he’s running. Ghost flame - Geryon covers himself and his carriage in a damaging ghostly flame. Jump over him. Wall pass - Geryon and his carriage run through the wall and emerge from another wall. The wall he’s coming out of gives off a faint yellow glow. Jump over him or roll (in the arena). Missile 1 - Geryon runs around in the outside of the circular arena shooting waves of missiles that track Dante. Run to the middle of the room and shoot E&I and fire Spiral once in a while. When missiles are approaching, jump and hover with E&I, then land after they explode on the ground. Jump up again and hover with E&I until the next missiles explode. Normally, Geryon’s missiles would hit you 1/10 times if you stayed in one place. Since he’s running in circles and the missiles aim at the ground, staying in the middle while jumping has you avoiding every missile. When he runs to the middle, air hike over him and hover with E&I till his ghost flames disappear. If you jump on the carriage before or during this running sequence, he fires no missiles. Missile 2 - Geryon stands in the middle of the stadium and shoots 3-missile waves. Devil trigger and run to him or roll /jump away from him. No missiles can hurt Dante in Devil Trigger form unless he’s in the air. Flaming carriage swing - Geryon flames his carriage up and swings it. Air hike out of the way and hover if necessary. Hoof kick - Geryon just kind of rears up on his hind legs. Running into his hooves will cause damage, otherwise this is harmless. Blue stomp - The stadium flashes blue, Geryon rears up on his hind legs just like hoof kick with blue flame on his front hooves, and then stomps the ground creating 4 flames that either shoot from Gery or home in on Dante. He often does this twice. Jump or air hike as he stomps (hover if necessary), then land and jump again as he stomps the second time. Wall pass sequence - Geryon runs (flaming) into a wall and reappears through another wall. The wall he’s coming out of gives off a faint yellow glow. He does this four times. After the fourth time, he stops in the middle of the arena. Quicksilver dome - After Geryon is stunned and falls on the ground, Geryon soon after creates a quicksilver dome. His eyes turn red and he creates a large red dome that slows down time for Dante while Geryon keeps his normal speed. Quicksilver dome follow up 1 - Geryon runs through a wall, reappears from another, stops in the middle, and resumes his attacks. Quicksilver dome follow up 2 - Geryon swings his carriage. Ouch. Air hike as quickly as possible. Quicksilver spheres - Geryon generates quicksilver spheres that wander around the stadium looking for Dante that disappear after a while. If he creates them while he’s doing his wall pass sequence, they’ll simply slow Dante. Quicksilver spheres (spears) - If Quicksilver spheres are created while Geryon is running laps around the stadium (Missile 1), spears surround Dante. These can easily be avoided by jumping or landing on the ground depending on where you are then one hits you. General Strategy: Always avoid Geryon’s hooves when he’s running, when they’re lifted off the ground, and always avoid the spikes on his carriage. They’re on the wheels. On the bridge during the beginning of the fight, there are two ways to move onto the next phase of the fight: One is to damage him enough (about 1/4 of his life) or wait him out (about 1-2 minutes.) The safe way is to wait him out and just constantly fire with E&I hesitating only to air hike over him as he comes close. To damage him enough, move forward so that you’re closer to the middle of the bridge. Start to unload with some E&I when you’re pretty close to the middle. When he stops to catch a breather, stinger to him and jump on his back. Slash the hell out of him until he starts running again. Jump off when he starts running because he’s going to reactivate ghost flame. When he’s either taken enough damage or you’ve waited him out, a cutscene will occur and the boss fight will continue in a new area. This is where the mission 18 Geryon fight starts, except he has a full bar of health on mission18. Geryon starts out in the middle of the arena and then runs laps while shooting Missile 1. Run to the middle and fire E&I while hopping up and down. Never let Dante’s feet touch the ground when missiles hit the ground. He can land right before and right after the missiles make their impact. This dodging strategy only works if you’re standing near the middle of the coliseum. When Geryon runs toward the middle, air hike and hover with E&I as he will swing his Carriage. Don’t land until the flame disappears below Dante. When you land, Geryon will be firing Missile two. As soon as you land, STINGER TOWARD HIM! Alternate way to get close: Devil Trigger and do whatever you want to get close. Once you’re close enough to Geryon, he’ll stop shooting missiles. He doesn’t want to hurt himself. Jump on his carriage and start slashing the hell out of it. Be sure to NOT lock onto Geryon, but instead his carriage. When slashing his carriage, pay attention to Geryon’s movements. If he’s running straight at the wall, jump off as soon as ghost flame gathers. You have a very small amount of time after the flame appears to avoid damage. If he runs around in circles (as he reaches the wall, he bangs a sharp right), keep slashing the hell out of his carriage until he runs toward the middle. When he reaches the middle, jump off and hover with E&I; he will swing his carriage. Land as soon as the ghost flames disappear and stinger into him. Once again, jump on his carriage and repeat. If he does runs into the wall while you’re on the carriage, again, jump off. He’ll be disappearing and reappearing a few times. Either run around in circles like Geryon does, or air hike and hover over him. You can do a small amount of extra damage by shooting him while he’s running toward you. The fourth time he reappears through a wall, he’ll stop in the middle of the arena. Stinger yourself to him and jump on his carriage again. Continue this until he’s at about 1/3 life. When he’s at 1/3 life, continue as normal except he now generates quicksilver orbs. When he’s doing the wall pass sequence, forget the tiny extra E&I damage and just run around the arena like Geryon. When he stops in the middle, stinger to him and jump on his carriage. Attack his carriage as he runs around the arena as usual. Geryon will generate Quicksilver spear spheres as he’s running around the arena. You shouldn’t need to worry about this too much while you’re on his carriage because if they do catch Dante, you’re on Geryon’s carriage and you’re moving. The spears will surround you, but Geryon will carry you away from them. Either that, or Dante will simply fall off the carriage avoiding the spears. If he falls off, air hike to make sure you avoid the spiked wheels. If you ever miss the chance to jump on Geryon’s carriage, do the following: Avoid whatever ghost flame-related move he does, then either do the “stay in the middle and avoid the missiles” or jump over his wall passes, depending on what he does. If he’s doing quicksilver while shooting missiles, avoid the missiles like usual and avoid the spears by jumping or landing, but be very wary of Geryon’s path. Geryon is another boss that seems very tough, but is quite simple with the right strategy. I personally avoid the “knock Geryon down by hitting his head” strategy because of the occasional carriage swing follow-up. If you do choose the “knock Geryon down” strategy, bring Cerberus. Since my carriage strategy involves riding the carriage, I don’t mention Cerberus because it causes you to fall off the carriage. Alternate: If you want to wail on Geryon himself, bring Cerberus. It’s his weakness. When Geryon is standing in the middle of the arena, stinger to him and then switch to Cerberus. Beat on him with revolver level 2s or standard Cerberus combos. Continue even after he falls over, however, when his eye turns red, switch weapons and air hike as high as possible, then hover with E&I. This will ensure you are able to dodge either the carriage swing or a wall pass. Besides this, proceed to dodge and counter the same as the above strategy. Using a mixture of both jumping on the carriage and attacking Geryon himself is probably best. Don’t neglect your Devil Trigger. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Rebellion Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann or Spiral The guns (besides E&I) don’t really matter. The only time you’ll be using them is switch-cancel firing while on the carriage. Melee works just as well. Style Specific Strategies: Trickster: Air trick -> sky star to Geryon if you don’t trust the stinger, however, this sometimes gets you a missile in the face. You can sky star over Geryon anytime he passes over you. Trickster is most helpful during the bridge portion. It allows you to get to the middle of the bridge much more quickly. Besides that, not too useful. Swordmaster: During the bridge fight, use Rebellion’s sword pierce. Whenever Geryon drops his flames, throw a sword pierce. This will knock him down. While he’s down, pump as many bullets into him as possible (switch-cancel fire Spiral). When he recovers, quicksilvers, and runs again, throw another sword pierce. Repeat until the cutscene. If you have Beowulf, the second half of the fight is almost as easy. Whenever he stops in the middle of the arena, Real Impact him. Don’t use Tornado. Perform Real Impact, land, and follow up with another Real Impact. Except for the first time he’s in the middle, Geryon will perform two magic stomps. Avoid them by standing on the carriage, but once the second one is over, hop to him and Real Impact. Gunslinger: Charge shots and Rapid fire are actually quite useful here. Whenever you find yourself shooting Geryon for a while, throw in a few charge shots for good measure. By the way, Rapid Fire adds a lot of small damage due to the sheer speed of the shots. Royal Guard: Well...Royal Guard is dope on Beowulf, but I don’t think Royal guard is too useful against Geryon. It’s almost impossible to guard the missiles, but you could guard the carriage swing and blue stomp flames as the respective attacks reach you, but it’s not ideal. I don’t recommend this style for this fight. Recommended Style: Swordmaster ------ Q. Vergil 2 “You will not forget this devil’s power. You are not worth as my opponent.” Weapons first time through - Devil Arms: Rebellion and Nevan Guns: E&I and Spiral Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Air Trick - Vergil has a better version of Dante's Air trick. He has an unlimited range with it and can teleport anywhere, not just to an opponent. Royal Guard - He has a better version of Royal Guard, too. He lifts his forearm in a blocking stance. The guard has a deflection effect for about 3 seconds. This means if you attack him while his arm is even slightly raised still, your attack will be deflected and you will be stunned. Sword flicker - Blocks gunfire of any sort by spinning his sword quickly in front of him. Killer bee - He teleports into the air and uses the Beowulf’s gauntlets’ killer bee attack. It is identical to Ifrit’s flame kick from DMC1. Roll to the side and stinger into him. Combo like mad until he stumbles back and grunts. Switch-cancel fire Spiral and wait for his next move. Beowulf combo 1 - Vergil performs two punches and two grounded spinning kicks. Run away, but don’t go too far. As soon as he does the fourth kick, stinger to him and combo like mad. When he grunts, switch-cancel fire Spiral a couple times. Beowulf combo 2 - Vergil performs the same two punches as Beowulf combo 1, then follows with 2 rising spinning kicks (it looks like a toned down version of Hinata’s Air Super Enbukyaku from Rival Schools) and finishes with a Killer bee. Run away like Beowulf combo 1, but when you see the third kick, jump into the air and drop on him with a helm breaker after he does killer bee. Combo him like mad, etc., etc. Beowulf combo 3 - Vergil does the spinning rising kicks then killer bee only. Keep away from the spinning kicks, then jump and helm breaker him as he lands from killer be. Again, combo him like crazy and finish with gunfire when he grunts. Awaken Yamato - When Vergil is at 1/3 life, he punches the ground and the crazy combo flash appears on him. Vergil will now use both Beowulf and Yamato attacks. Sword Combo 1 - Two vertical slashes, one up, one down. Dodge it by staying away. Jump/roll away if you have to. Stinger to him. Combo as you please until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, shoot him a couple times with E&I, then quickly switch-cancel a couple of Spiral shots. Jump away and be ready to dodge. Combo 2 - Two sheath attacks, horizontal slash. The horizontal slash has great range. Jump/roll away. Combo 3 - Two sheath attacks, slash upward, slash downward. Treat it like combo 1 and jump/roll away. Dash slash (he one like Kurow's super from Project Justice. ) aka "DIE!" - He dashes forward. Kind of like a slower stinger with less range. Jump/roll to the side, stinger into him, fire E&I, then fire Spiral and jump away ready to dodge. Often times he does this a couple times in a row. Purple orb "Hm!" - Vergil takes a slightly bent over stance with his hand on his Yamato. He then quickly slashes creating a purple orb of "slashing." This homes in on Dante. Sometimes he only shoots one, sometimes he shoots several. It doesn't matter because the second you see him take the purple orb throwing stance stinger to him and combo as you please until he grunts. After he grunts, switch-cancel fire a couple of rifle shots. Devil Trigger - Vergil gains speed, strength, and regains health. Just like Dante's DT. Activate your own devil trigger and counter as usual except don't combo. Get one or two hits in (stinger works very well), then dodge just to be safe. Go for three hits if you're feeling "dangerous." It won't take long to knock him out of DT (dodge and counter 2 combos in Normal mode). Apparently Vergil was holding back during the first fight. The first time he uses this, he creates a purple sphere. This is simply to tell the player Vergil is doing something new (at least this time it is.) General Strategy: Fight Vergil 2 very similarly to Vergil 1. If he ever stands far away from Dante and you want him to attack, shoot E&I a couple times and ready yourself for his attack. When the battle starts, he’ll be using the Beowulf gauntlets. Whenever he performs the killer bee, stinger to him and beat him senseless. Follow up with some gunfire. When countering Vergil’s Beowulf attacks, you must be close by. He recovers from them more quickly than Yamato attacks because after Yamato attacks, he sheaths his sword. Beowulf attacks take no preparation, the weapons are always out. Don’t run too far from him when he performs his combos. When Vergil’s lifebar falls to about 1/3, he will use both Beowulf and Yamato attacks instead. Watch out for his extended movelist, dodge and counter, and don’t forget that purple orb stance=stinger. Yamato attacks have a longer recovery time than Beowulf attacks. Vergil’s Devil Trigger is much like Dante’s, but he can maintain it for much longer. He can use it with either Beowulf or Yamato. To knock him out of Devil Trigger form quickly, activate Dante’s Devil Trigger and counter his attacks like usual, except hit him only once or twice (stinger -> slash). It only takes a few hits to knock him out of Devil trigger, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem for you. Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf and Nevan Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Extra tips for Recommended: Switch-cancel fire one or two KA shots whenever Vergil stumbles backwards grunting. Instead of Stinger, air hiked killer bees can be used. They’re stronger anyway. Combo with Beowulf when Vergil is stunned and open to combos. It inflicts more damage. When Vergil takes the purple orb stance, air hike toward him and killer bee his face. Proceed to kick the crap out of him until he stumbles back which should then be followed by gunfire. Use DT whenever possible. To inflict maximum damage in one combo, I suggest using the Killer Bee bounce. What is this? This is what happens when Dante jumps off of his enemy as he connects with a killer bee. It allows for rapid-fire Killer Bee attacks. Why would you want to use this? Killer bee inflicts more damage than any other non-style specific attack. The easiest way to accomplish this is to be very close to Vergil. Once you Killer bee/straight to Vergil, jump -> air hike -> killer bee -> enemy hike (jump off enemy) -> killer bee -> enemy hike -> killer bee...etc. This may take some practice. The killer bee bounce can also be initiated from a close range Rising Dragon. After landing twelve quick Beowulf attacks (hopefully almost all killer bees), switch to Nevan, send Vergil stumbling with a Reverb Shock, and then follow up with rocket fire. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the amount of damage you can inflict in one round. Answer Vergil’s Killer bees with your own rapid fire diving kicks of death. If you cannot perform 13 killer bee kicks in one go, count how many you can complete before Vergil stuns. If you’re quick, you can get 13 kicks. If you’re semi quick, you can get 10. Whatever number of kicks you can complete, keep track because replacing the final kick with a Reverb shock will net you a bit more damage. Style Specific Strategies: Trickster: Trickster's dash, sky star, and air trick abilities augment your mobility and increase your chances of countering Vergil. I recommend not using air trick during the purple orb attacks. You never know when you will accidentally teleport into one of his orbs or even a combo. Dashing and sky star can augment your dodging skills a little, but are better used as catching up to Vergil as he misses a combo. Swordmaster: Dance Macabre is fun if you have SM level 3, but don't start the Million Stab. Don’t attempt Real impact in this fight, however. Vergil will not allow Dante time to charge the uppercut. Swordmaster is not ideal for this fight. Gunslinger: This style doesn't add too much to this fight unless you switch either the KA or E&I for the shotgun. If so, then you can gunstinger -> shotgun shot -> gunstinger or you can gunstinger -> fireworks -> gunstinger after he stumbles (grunts, steps back) for extra damage before jumping away from him. Gunstinger counts as a projectile attack and not a melee attack so he can't royal guard it. I think this style lets shotgun fans use the shotgun for extra damage in place of the Kalina Ann. After all, not everyone likes the Kalina Ann. Royal Guard: You don't need to dodge combos anymore. Just Guard his combos. To Just Guard the helm breakers, jump in the air to meet him and air Just Guard. After charging all available rage orbs, Just Release next time he tries to combo you. Try the DT explosion + Just Release and watch his life disappear. ;]I recommend you still dodge the purple orbs and the dash slash, but you can try to Just Guard them if you like; they are tricky to Just Guard. The dash slash must be guarded JUST as he reaches you and the purple orbs must be blocked about one second after they are formed (listen carefully to the sound, the sound drops in pitch when you should guard.) When guarding combos, keep in mind that his sheath attacks are quick and the sword attacks are slower. Don’t over anticipate the sword attacks and don’t under anticipate the sheath blows. Recommended Style: Trickster or Royal Guard ------ R. Lady “Let’s rock!” Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Rebellion and Beowulf Guns: E&I Kalina Ann is the Rocket launcher with a blade on it, if you did not know yet. Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Pistol shots - Lady walks backwards cautiously slowly firing her pistol. Jump as you approach her to avoid this. Grappling blade - Lady points her Kalina Ann at the ceiling and fires the grappling blade. It carries her away and she sprays Dante’s area with TMP fire and sometimes drops a grenade. Tactical Machine Pistol shots - She fires her TMP on two occasions: When she dives backwards and when she uses her Kalina Ann’s Grappling blade. Roll away when she either dives backwards or when she uses the grappling blade. Spinning TMP shots - Lady twirls and fires her TMP. Roll aside. Dagger throw - If you remember the cutscene at the end of mission 9 when Lady is doing all this shooting, I’m referring to something she did right before reloading the last gun. She reloads a gun with her mouth and grabs this thing that looks almost like a sling shot. That’s a dagger launcher. After she dives backwards and shoots TMP bullets, she fires the knife launcher from near her thigh while getting up. When you knock her down with a combo, she’ll also stand up while firing daggers. If you’re in her line of fire, roll aside again. Rocket - Lady aims her Kalina Ann and says something (“Let’s rock!” “Showtime!” “Get ready!” “Are you ready?” “Okayyyyyy!”) then stands there for about ten years before pulling the trigger. When you hear her say something like this, run up to her and use your Devil Arm’s crazy combo (million stab, million punch, million slash). If she gets to shoot the rocket (unlikely unless you’re VERY far away), roll to the side or hide behind a bookshelf. Lady stops using this attack at 2/3 life. Grenades - She drops a grenade after grappling away sometimes. Run away from it. When she is down to 2/3 life, she will jump on top of a book shelf and leave grenades behind for Dante: a pile on top of the book shelf and some scattered on the ground around it. She jumps off the bookshelf. Simply stay away from the grenades when they start quickly flashing red. Hysteria - At 1/4 life, Lady goes back to running around the room without all the grenades. Lady plants the Kalina Ann in the ground via grappling blade and says something (“Get ready!” “Are you scared?” etc.) The gun fires several missiles from a small turret mounted on the end opposite the barrel. This is similar to Rocket, but with a slightly shorter wind up time. She aims in one direction and doesn’t change it no matter what. You can run past her and stand behind her, run behind a book shelf, or simply crazy combo her before she even finishes the attack. General Strategy: This is one battle where stinger is not very useful, nor are any other strong knock back attacks (straight, killer bee, etc.) Only use it to get a quick hit in while Lady is Grappling away. Lady stops to reload her guns from time to time. She is completely vulnerable during this time. When she shoots her pistol, Dante’s E&I can block the bullets like in the Dante vs. Lady gunfight earlier. Running toward her from behind the bookcases (out of her range) is usually a better choice. In the beginning of the battle, Lady runs around the room shooting her pistol, TMP, and rocket. Get out of the way of her gunfire and punish her whenever she uses rocket. By punish, I mean punish. Run up to her and slash twice with Rebellion, switch to Beowulf and punch twice then repeat until she runs away. If you’re playing Normal mode, she’ll be missing about 1/3 of her life already, and that’s without using Devil Trigger! When she jumps away from you, watch out for the knife throw. She crouches to do the knife throw and it’s mad quick. Be ready to dodge, then chase her around so you can get in a few hits (stinger/straight/killer bee to her) before she grapples away. When she is pulling herself up, move away. She’ll shower the ground where she once stood with bullets. Sometimes, she even leaves a nice surprise for you when she grapples away: a grenade. Stinger/straight into her and jump away as she fires her TMP. When she loses about 1/3 of her life, she’ll go into grenade happy mode. Follow her around the room as well as you can when she’s in grenade mode. If you catch her on a bookshelf before she throws grenades, jump up and get a couple hits in. Jump away as she grapples because she’ll fire the TMP at Dante. Make sure you follow her closely (lock on for a second if you’re not sure where she is) because once in a while she’ll stop to reload her guns. Assault her with your infinite weapon switch combo while she’s reloading and never stand near any glowing red lights on the ground. At 1/3 life, Lady’s patterns changes again. She runs around the room like the beginning of the battle, but uses Hysteria instead of Rocket. When she starts Hysteria, don’t give her a chance to fire the missiles (but don’t use stinger, straight, killer bee, etc.) Infinite weapon switch combo her. Game over, Lady. Using DT makes this fight even easier! Haaaaaa Style Specific strategies: Trickster: Use trickster to catch up to Lady easily. This makes stalking Lady easier. Swordmaster: Dance Macabre if you want to get close. I would just stick to the weapon switching for the main damage. Gunslinger: I do not recommend using gunslinger moves because guns are not very effective against Lady except gunstinger (which knocks her back like stinger.) Royal Guard: Difficult to implement here unless you can settle for not Just Guarding. Other than this, I do not recommend this style. Recommended style: Trickster ------ S. Doppelganger “I don’t need you anymore.” Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Rebellion and Beowulf Guns: E&I Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Shadow volcano - Doppelganger punches the ground and a large shadow appears under Dante. It then erupts in a shadowy version of Beowulf’s volcano. Run and jump away from it or lock onto Doppelganger and roll a couple times. Dash - He always has Dante’s Trickster dash. Shadow orb - Doppelganger jumps opposite an open window and closes it by throwing a shadow orb at it. Don’t stand in front of open windows. He’s not aiming at Dante. Rebellion - Three slash combo. Air hike straight up and hover with E&I. Stinger - It isn’t a true stinger, he stabs after dashing. Kick - Doppelganger does that turning shin kick Dante does when equipped with Rebellion when an enemy is right behind him. Beowulf - Uppercut. Air hike straight up and hover with E&I. Taunt - He taunts Dante. It instantly kills Dante. Just kidding. Shadow engulf - If you manage to break all the shutters at once, Doppelganger is stunned for a long time. Once he comes out of it, he will perform a Shadow engulf and close every window in one darkness blast that does not damage Dante. General Strategies: Doppelganger can only be harmed in the light. When the fight begins, Doppelganger will dash at Dante and attack. Air hike and hover over him till he’s done. Run to any wall. Hug the walls the whole fight. DON’T LOCK ONTO DOPPELGANGER! INSTEAD FIND A WINDOW AND AIM DANTE’S REBELLION ATTACKS AT IT MANUALLY! The windows look like round windows with metallic shutters. Pick one and hit it with Rebellion 4 times on Easy, 5 times on Normal, 6 times on Hard, and 7 times on DMD to break it open. Hit the shutter 4 times and wait for Doppelganger to come close. Air hike over him if he interrupts your attacking the shutter. Hit it the last time, switch to Beowulf and perform one of the combos listed below. The entire fight continues in the same fashion: Dante starts hitting a window, it dashes at Dante, Dante jumps over him, it jumps back to the middle, Dante waits, it dashes at Dante, Dante breaks open a window, Doppelganger freaks, Dante hits him a few times, Doppelganger jumps away to the middle. Doppelganger stands in the middle of the room unless he is dashing to attack Dante. Run to a new window and repeat. After that, run to a new window and repeat. Then repeat. Then repeat. Oh, and repeat again. Then you have to repeat it. He dies, but you have to repeat it some more before he does. Use your devil trigger explosion at max to shorten this fight a bit. Activate your DT (when available) whenever he’s vulnerable and cancel it whenever he jumps away. Taunt whenever he jumps away, as well, for DT. How to attack Doppelganger effectively in 5 seconds: 1. Keep a DT explosion charged up to full and release it while attacking. 2. Beowulf combo I -> Straight -> taunt (Be quick) 3. Rising dragon -> Killer bee -> jump cancel -> Killer bee -> Taunt 4. Jump -> Killer bee -> jump cancel -> Killer bee -> jump cancel -> Killer bee -> Taunt 5. Taunt every chance you get to build up DT so that this simple exercise can pass quickly. After the first DT explosion, you can build up for another one or just DT every time you attack and un-DT when you taunt. Either one is efficient enough. 6. Use the killer bee chain as often as possible. You can break all the windows and make him more vulnerable for a longer period of time, but I find it to be too much of a hassle. I’d rather do it the simple way. You can try if you like, however. Hit each one enough so that each will break with one more hit. When he comes close to you, break one and then run to all the others and break them. He is stunned for longer this way, but it takes longer to pull off. It’s your choice. Steve (gtg277q@mail.gatech.edu) suggested the following: I was just skimming your strategies and noticed the doppelganger section. I don’t know if you’ve tried this but you can bounce its shadow orb back at it for big damage using rebellion. On harder difficulties you have to get closer, but it works much better than just using the shutters. About Steve’s tip: Be careful because if you can slash the purple ball, Doppelganger can do it right back at you. Be prepared to slash it once more or roll out of the way. Style Specific strategies: Trickster: You don’t need trickster’s abilities for dodging or gaining ground quickly. All you need to dodge here is air hike and E&I. Swordmaster: Pointless unless you open all the windows and use Beowulf’s Real Impact. Gunslinger: Nothing unless you want to replace a three-hit Beowulf combo/triple killer bee with a gunstinger mashed into a long point blank. Royal Guard: Uh, guard his rushes if you like, but it’s nearly impossible to telegraph which attack he will use. They all come out quickly, however, so if you get the timing down for one, you’ll get the timing down for all. He attacks during the second dash unless he started farther than the center of the room. In that case, he’ll do it during the third dash. Release while in devil form when he’s vulnerable. Jump guard will help with the timing. Recommended Style: Quicksilver. You read that right. Break the shutters with a helm breaker. Make sure Helm breaker is the last hit. As you drop for the helm breaker and as Doppelganger approaches, activate timelag and wail on him with Beowulf. As Doppelganger recovers, initiate the taunt and stop timelag. This will give you a bit of DT back. If ever low on DT, open the shutter normally, don’t timelag, and taunt as Doppelganger jumps away as listed above. Killer bee the hell out of him while you’re timelagging. ------ T. Mission 19 Boss “Entrap this world in fear” Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Anything, but make sure you have an Air Hike weapon. Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Tentacle swipes - Boss lifts a tentacle to the side and swipes at Dante and Vergil. Jump/run away when you see him lift a tentacle. Tentacle slam - Boss lifts two tentacles above his...uh “head” and slams them down on Dante and Vergil. Jump/run away or roll to the side. Yellow homing eel projectile - Boss turns yellow making a strange sound, then fires 2 eels (normal difficulty) from somewhere on his body. Pick a side (left or right) and keep air hiking in that direction till they pass. Don’t air hike mindlessly, though. Homing capability. Red homing eel projectile - Boss turns red making a strange sound, then fires 3-5 eels (normal difficulty) from somewhere on his body. Pick a side (left or right) and keep air hiking in that direction till they pass. Don’t air hike mindlessly, though. Homing capability. Sink - Boss turns purple, sinks into the gel-like ground, and summons slugs. Keep attacking until he completely disappears. Drop - Boss drops like the ceiling ala Nightmare. Get in close and start attacking. Slug summon - Boss summons many slug looking things. They swim around Dante and Vergil, using the water/gel as a hiding place. They emerge, then hide, etc. Use Kalina Ann to take most of them out. Hovering with E&I takes one or two out, but they might knock you out of the air. In other words, avoid hovering. Throw in a melee combo once in a while, but mostly stick to rolling around with Kalina Ann. When Dante’s companion is present, attacking with E&I becomes more effective. Dante’s companion attacks more the more Dante attacks. The slugs only attack when they’re red. Grab - During the second half of the fight, the boss can grab Dante forcing you (one player) to take control of Vergil and force Dante free. The boss’s windup for this attack looks like the swipes, but with both tentacles. General Strategy: This is a pretty simple fight. Get in close, do damage, and avoid attacks. Get away if he lifts a tentacle to the side or roll to the side if he raises the tentacles above his head. If he changes color, react accordingly. If it’s purple, then wail on him until he disappears. If he turns yellow or red, run the heck away and air hike to one side until all the eels are gone. When he summons slugs, simply roll around and shoot them with Kalina Ann. They’ll go down in no time and you’ll have an SSStylish rating. Don’t forget to dodge and not roll around mindlessly. Switch canceling Kalina Ann is a good idea here. Devil Trigger! One player: When the boss’s life drops to half, Dante is joined by none other than Vergil. The fight becomes harder now (if you don’t have a friend around). All style moves are taken away because the O button calls Vergil to Dante’s side. Oh, and neither of the brothers can Devil Trigger. The boss fights more aggressively for this half. When he’s in sight, he uses the eel projectiles more frequently. That means more air hiking for Dante. Vergil has infinite health here, so don’t worry about him taking damage. Yes, the boss still uses the swipes and slam, but rarely. It isn’t safe to be close to the boss when he attacks with the eel projectile, so don’t melee attack him for long. Stinger, straight, killer bee, jet stream level 3, revolver level 2, or Reverb Shock in and get an extra hit or two in, then air hike or run away. Let Vergil handle doing most of the damage. Fire E&I whenever you’re not busy dodging to make Vergil attack the boss. Vergil only attacks when Dante does, so keeping up E&I fire whenever possible will keep Vergil attacking like a mad dog. Whenever the boss turns purple, stinger, straight, killer bee, jet stream level 3, revolver level 2, or Reverb Shock into him and wail on him until he disappears completely. During the slug scenes, shooting E&I will have Vergil attacking the slugs for you. I recommend alternating between firing Kalina Ann and E&I. Remember to dodge. O_o When the boss drops, resume dodging, firing E&I, and punishing him for turning purple. Two players: Press start on controller two and have a friend help! This makes the battle much easier and much shorter, eespecially on DMD mode! Vergil’s controls (guaranteed to be accurate now, my girlfriend and I tested): Triangle and Square - Slash X - Jump Circle - Air trick to Dante’s side R1 - Lock on (he gets no reticle, though) Attacks: Three-hit combo - Slash, slash, slash Dash slash - R1+Toward direction Vergil faces+slash Killer bee - Slash (in the air) Two slashes - R1+Away from direction Vergil faces+slash, slash Have the Dante player concentrate on dodging and using guns while Vergil attacks the boss nonstop. Vergil doesn’t have to dodge anything. He has infinite life. During the slug scenes, Vergil should be going insane and Dante should be using Kalina Ann and an occasional melee combo. Dante and Vergil with only one player: All right, I decided to add this. If you have a turbo controller, this will be a lot easier, but it can be done without a turbo controller. This is something I do when I play Mission 19 and neither my girlfriend (dating a gamer rocks) nor my sister’s boyfriend are around. Make sure you have both controllers plugged in. Prepare your second controller: Tape down the R1 button so that Vergil is always locked on. When Vergil appears, press start on the second controller, then If you have a turbo controller, turbo one of the slash buttons and Vergil will attack no matter what Dante is doing. Of course this means he’ll be going around doing his three-slash combo over and over again. Once in a while, it may take him a missed combo to get to a target. This has advantages over playing with an AI Vergil, however. Even when you’re dodging eel after eel, Vergil will be hacking away at the boss. If you don’t have a turbo controller, tape down the R1 button and press start when Vergil enters the fray. Now, this may sound silly, but make sure your feet are clean. You probably are getting what idea I’m approaching. Yes, that’s right. Place the second controller near your feet and keep hitting X with your big toe. Use whichever foot you feel more comfortable with. I’m personally right footed. I don’t own a turbo controller. You can’t sit on the floor to do this. Oh well, small sacrifice, right? Play like the One player strategy above, except if you don’t have a turbo controller, keep that big toe pumping. Style specific strategy (for first half of the lifebar): Trickster: Skystar makes dodging the eels much easier. Air hike in a direction (left or right) and sky star in the same direction. Repeat till all eels are gone. Air trick+sky star helps a lot if you need to get in close with a helm breaker or other aerial attack. I recommend not using trickster because you will not have sky star to aid in your eel dodging later in the fight. I recommend getting used to dodging without sky star here. Swordmaster: Real Impact inflicts a whole lot of damage. Ice age blocks the eel projectiles. Sword pierce helps a little if you throw Rebellion then go crazy with your other weapon. Crazy roll rocks. Using Distortion from a safe distance while no eels are chasing you works well. Gunslinger: If you really want to go this route, it’s Artemis time. Use acid rain to knock some slugs out. Remember that acid rain can be canceled at any time. If you don’t want to use Artemis, you could always spam gunstinger and fireworks. ;] I recommend avoiding this because E&I is most useful during the second half and without Dante’s gunslinger abilities, Kalina Ann controls the slugs better than any other gun. Royal Guard: Guard the eels as they approach. Same with the tentacle attacks. Remember to release in devil trigger mode for maximum damage. I still have to test Ultimate against the eels. Sorry. Recommended style: Swordmaster because of the damage possibility with Real Impact over gunslinger’s moves for this fight. Also, relying on sky star and guard to avoid the eel projectiles may be a bad thing when you are forced have to dodge them with only air hike and roll. ------ U. Vergil 3 “Our souls are at odds, brother.” Recommended weapons - Devil Arms: Beowulf and Nevan Guns: E&I and Kalina Ann Attacks/moves and how to counter them: Air Trick - As always, Vergil has a better version of Dante's Air trick. He has an unlimited range with it and can teleport anywhere, not just to an opponent. Royal Guard - He has a better version of Royal Guard, too. He lifts his forearm in a blocking stance. The guard has a deflection effect for about 3 seconds. This means if you attack him while his arm is even slightly raised still, your attack will be deflected and you will be stunned. Sword flicker - Blocks gunfire of any sort by spinning his sword quickly in front of him. Air Trick - As always, Vergil has a better version of Dante's Air trick. He has an unlimited range with it and can teleport anywhere, not just to an opponent. Royal Guard - He has a better version of Royal Guard, too. He lifts his forearm in a blocking stance. The guard has a deflection effect for about 3 seconds. This means if you attack him while his arm is even slightly raised still, your attack will be deflected and you will be stunned. Sword flicker - Blocks gunfire of any sort by spinning his sword quickly in front of him. Combo 1 - Two vertical slashes, one up, one down. Dodge it by staying away. Jump/roll away if you have to. If you're close, stinger or straight into him. If you're far, air hike and (lock on) killer bee into him. Combo as you please (beowulf does more damage) until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, shoot him a couple times with E&I, then quickly switch-cancel a couple of KA shots. Jump away and be ready to dodge. Combo 2 - Two sheath attacks, horizontal slash. The horizontal slash has great range. Jump/roll away. Combo 3 - Two sheath attacks, slash upward, slash downward. Treat it like combo 1 and jump/roll away. Combo 4 - Two sheath attacks, slash upward, then teleport helm breaker into stinger. To dodge this one jump away to dodge the first 3 attacks. Make sure you can see him after this. When he teleports, run. When he lands, jump and fire E&I (or shotgun) once (that's all you need) to hover over his stinger. After the stinger, (lock on) killer bee into him and combo as you please (beowulf does more damage) until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, shoot him a couple times by switch-cancel firing KA. Be ready to dodge afterward. Dash slash (he one like Kurow's super from Project Justice. ) aka "DIE!" - He dashes forward. Kind of like a slower stinger with less range. Jump away and lock on killler bee into him, fire E&I, then fire KA and jump away ready to dodge. Often times he does this a couple times in a row. Stinger - He does a stinger without the combo once in a while. Treat it like a dash slash except you can combo him till he grunts. Unload some more gunfire on him and then jump away and be ready to dodge. Purple orb "Hm!" - Vergil takes a slightly bent over stance with his hand on his Yamato. He then quickly slashes creating a purple orb of "slashing." This homes in on Dante. Sometimes he only shoots one, sometimes he shoots several. It doesn't matter because the second you see him take the purple orb throwing stance, air hike toward him, lock on, and killer bee into him then combo as you please (beowulf does more damage) until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, you know the drill. Switch-cancel fire a couple rockets. Teleport helm breaker - Vergil teleports and does helm breaker alone. When he teleports, and you hear him grunt without seeing him (or you see him above you), simply run away. After, killer bee, straight, or stinger into him and combo as you please (beowulf does more damage) until he grunts. After he grunts don't melee attack him. He'll deflect it with royal guard and attack you. Instead, you know the drill. Switch-cancel fire a couple rockets. It’s redundant, but get ready to dodge. Teleport helm breaker combo - Vergil does 4 or 5 (depending on difficulty) teleport helm breakers in a row, each from a lower height than the last. Dodge it like a normal helm breaker, except there's more than one. -Shrug- Running around in a large circle works fine. He does 4 teleport helm breakers on Easy and 5 on all other difficulties. Quickly combo him before he finishes putting Force edge away. After he grunts, finish with some gunfire and watch/listen for his next move. Round Trip - Vergil bends over while holding the force edge. He then throws it at Dante and it spirals at him. This homes in on Dante. When you see him charging up a force edge, you can do a couple of things. You can shoot it with E&I (not recommended because it has a tendancy to hit you once or twice anyway), shoot it with KA when it's close (This knocks it completely away). Devil Trigger - Vergil gains speed, strength, and regains health. Just like Dante's DT. Get one hit in (killer bee and straight/stinger work greatly), then dodge just to be safe. Go for two hits if you're feeling "adventurous." It won't take long to knock him out of DT (dodge and counter 2 combos in Normal mode). Super Devil Trigger - A purple sphere/shield surrounds Vergil and he becomes invincible while half whispering a random taunt. -_- When he does this, start moving. Whatever he does after Super DT cannot be stopped and he cannot be knocked out of super DT. Therefore, when he does super DT, don't bother activating your own devil trigger. Super Purple Orb attack - After performing Super Devil Trigger, if Vergil teleports away while saying, “This is the end,” he's about to do this attack. Vergil sends many, many purple orbs after Dante. x_x Run around and air hike in a rectangle (example: run forward, air hike left, run back, air hike right, run forward, air hike left, etc.) Don’t air hike into the wall. That will get you killed. When he comes back on screen, he'll stand there dazed for a few seconds. Air hike and killer bee into him if you're far (and you probably are), then you know the drill. Get in two KA attacks if you think you can. Super Helm Breaker sequence - Vergil alternates between the Teleport Helm breaker combo and combo 2 (Two sheath attacks, slash upward, then teleport helm breaker into stinger.) He does not necessarily do both combos, but can use both and only these two combos. Dodge them just as you normally would. Remember to watch out for the stinger. It's probably the only thing you really have to worry about. When he's tired, he sheathes his sword and stands there wearing a sign that says "killer bee into me and combo like mad!" You should know how this goes by now. General Strategy: Vergil is a fairly simple fight once you learn to recognize his attacks. Vergil starts the battle with any attack except the Super DT and Super orb attacks. Get in as much damage as you can at one time, i.e. adding gunfire after stunning him away from you. Use the Devil Trigger sparingly saving most, if not all of the 3 transformation orbs. If Vergil goes Devil (not super DT), then DT to knock him out of his more quickly. When you see Vergil's super DT purple sphere, think evasive. Do not attack him for any reason or you may slow yourself down enough to be caught by a combo. Vergil is an easy fight that consists of simple dodging and countering. It's a matter of knowing how to counter. Counters and attacks are described above. Switch-cancel fire one or two KA shots whenever Vergil stumbles backwards grunting. Instead of Stinger, air hiked killer bees can be used. They’re stronger anyway. Combo with Beowulf when Vergil is stunned and open to combos. It inflicts more damage. When Vergil takes the purple orb stance, air hike toward him and killer bee his face. Proceed to kick the crap out of him until he stumbles back which should then be followed by gunfire. Use DT whenever possible. To inflict maximum damage in one combo, I suggest using the Killer Bee bounce. What is this? This is what happens when Dante jumps off of his enemy as he connects with a killer bee. It allows for rapid-fire Killer Bee attacks. Why would you want to use this? Killer bee inflicts more damage than any other non-style specific attack. The easiest way to accomplish this is to be very close to Vergil. Once you Killer bee/straight to Vergil, jump -> air hike -> killer bee -> enemy hike (jump off enemy) -> killer bee -> enemy hike -> killer bee...etc. This may take some practice. The killer bee bounce can also be initiated from a close range Rising Dragon. After landing twelve quick Beowulf attacks (hopefully almost all killer bees), switch to Nevan, send Vergil stumbling with a Reverb Shock, and then follow up with rocket fire. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the amount of damage you can inflict in one round. If you cannot perform 13 killer bee kicks in one go, count how many you can complete before Vergil stuns. If you’re quick, you can get 13 kicks. If you’re semi quick, you can get 10. Whatever number of kicks you can complete, keep track because replacing the final kick with a Reverb shock will net you a bit more damage. If you get caught in any of his combos, immediately DT to minimize damage, or if you're lucky, it will negate the stun allowing you to dodge and counter as normal. Make sure your DT doesn't go too far under 3 runes EVER. You never know when you'll need it. DT explosion is very effective against him for quick damage and can be used while you combo him, but after using it, immediately un-DT to make sure you can transform whenever you need to. If you taunt and he isn't stumbling (he grunts, steps back, and royal guards), then he'll immediately combo you or initiate a super DT. Once in a while, when you make him stumble back and grunt, he'll immediately teleport not giving you time to shoot him. Oh well. Just keep track of his moves. :) If you read my counters carefully, you'd have noticed that whenever Vergil stumbles (he grunts), you should not attack with melee weapons, instead you should inflict extra damage with guns. If you ever take too long to counter Vergil, he may either take the hit and step back stunned and grunting or royal guard your attack. Style Specific Strategies: Trickster: Trickster's dash, sky star, and air trick abilities augment your mobility and increase your chances of countering slightly. I recommend not using air trick during the purple orb attacks. You never know when you will accidentally teleport into one of his orbs or even a round trip. Dashing can augment your dodging skills a little, but sky star is especially helpful. During the Super orb attack, after air hiking, sky star in the next direction of the rectangle. During combo 3, when you see him teleport, jump and quickly sky star and then hover with E&I if you can't time jumping away normally. A few quick hop -> sky stars or a simple dash help dodge the helm breakerx4/5 combo if you don't feel comfortable running in a circle. Swordmaster: Dance Macabre is fun if you want to use Rebellion, but don't start the Million Stab. If you want to use Real Impact, do it after Vergil is recovering from one of his own super DT sequences. If you're close to him, don't killer bee, stinger, or straight into him. Run up to him and initiate Real Impact (DT for max damage) and watch his health disappear. This is the only time Dante has time to charge a Real Impact. Sword Pierce counts as a melee attack. Gunslinger: This style doesn't add too much to this fight unless you switch either the KA or E&I for the shotgun. If so, then you can gunstinger -> shotgun shot -> gunstinger or you can gunstinger -> fireworks -> gunstinger after he stumbles (grunts, steps back) for extra damage before jumping away from him. Gunstinger counts as a projectile attack and not a melee attack so he can't royal guard it. I think this style lets shotgun fans use the shotgun for extra damage in place of the Kalina Ann. After all, not everyone likes the Kalina Ann. Royal Guard: You don't need to dodge combos anymore. Just Guard his combos. To Just Guard the helm breakers, jump in the air to meet him and air Just Guard. After charging all available rage orbs, Just Release next time he tries to combo you. Try the DT explosion + Just Release and watch his life disappear. ;] I recommend you still dodge the purple orbs, the dash slash, and the stinger still, but you can try to Just Guard them if you like; they are tricky to Just Guard. The dash slash and stinger must be guarded JUST as he reaches you and the purple orbs must be blocked about one second after they are formed (listen carefully to the sound, the sound drops in pitch when you should guard.) When guarding combos, keep in mind that his sheath attacks are quick and the sword attacks are slower. Don’t over anticipate the sword attacks and don’t under anticipate the sheath blows. Recommended Style: Trickster or Royal Guard *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* VII. FINAL COMMENTS ------ I hope this guide was helpful for anyone that took the time to read any part of it. If you have any alternate strategies or extra tips for a certain boss, E-mail me (mr_bombastic9@hotmail.com) with the FAQ’s name in the subject line (just so I don’t delete it) and let me know what your tip/alternate strategy is. Also, list a name to credit it to (your gameFAQs contributor or gameFAQs message board name) or I’ll just credit your E-mail address. Thanks a lot and hope you enjoyed this wonderful game! Wow! This FAQ has gotten over 50,000 hits in only 4 months! Thanks for the support and I hope this has helped you guys conquer the bosses of DMC3. They’re easy. ;] *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-* VIII. SPECIAL THANKS ------ Thanks for being there, Melissa, and not minding when I work on this guide. Thank you, Capcom, for making such a dope action game. Thanks to GameFAQS.com and CJayC for hosting this guide. *~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-*