Intro:
I actually started writing this in 2021 and have been slowly adding/editing it over the past couple of years.
Life is short. Losing one of my best friends (RIP BIGBADWOLF) and some people I cared about recently has reminded me of that and I don't want to leave with part of DMC's history being lost. I'm also aware that if you don't write your own story, somebody else will.
Although it'll be a lengthy read, I'll summarize and break it up into digestible portions. So if you're interested, look forward to further updates. I will probably update this in the future as well if I remember something, or if old footage resurfaces.
I've heard some people tell stories of the early DMC3 era, and while they have some knowledge of the events, it's better to get it straight from the source. Most of what I'm covering was over 10 to almost 20 years ago, so hopefully you as the reader give me a bit of grace for my memory.
Who am I? Well, most top players and new players of the modern social media era would have no idea. But I'd like to think that what was accomplished by the era I come from is important to the life of this series that we all love.
I got my start playing DMC1 back when it came out in 2001 at 15 years old, which makes me a....very old DMC player. I've been playing this series since the day it came out, and for a majority of that time, at a high level. I am one of the three co-creators of the original style tournament for Devil May Cry, the True Style Tournament.
A lot of the foundation for the series today is based on what this "forgotten" era, including myself, has done.
DMC1-2: Summary - 2001 - 2004
We could jump right into the DMC3 era, but that would be ignoring a couple of important things of significance from DMC1 and DMC2's era that put a bit of perspective on DMC3. I became a partially active member of the "DMC Community" back in 2002 - 03, by joining the IGN boards/forums for the game. Then, we had two main centers for the community. The first was the IGN boards, which focused on all aspects of the game - from story to gameplay. The second was Gamefaqs.com DMC boards, which were mostly gameplay-focused.
Back then, even though DMC1 was self-categorized as "stylish action", high-level play didn't really emphasize that...at least not recorded. It's good to note that DMC1 in particular rewarded you for efficiency more than stylishness, with time and damage being major factors in your mission grade. Of course, this is standard stuff any DMC vet would know, but I say this because it was probably one of the reasons why high-level play was more narrow in those times.
The only footage of the game then was of glitches and boss battles. Alastor / Force Edge / Yamato analog cancel glitch, Shotgun hiking (early jump canceling), Grenade gun canceling, etc. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, this footage is lost along with the players that found the tech.
This trend continued for DMC2, but to a lesser extent obviously, because the game wasn't as polished as DMC1. The important take from this era is that high-level play was one based more on efficiency. Of course, one could say that efficiency can be another method of stylishness and in its own way, that's true. They can overlap. However, being efficient is not always stylish, and being stylish isn't always efficient. From the beginning, I played the series to look cool and to push the boundaries of that as far as I could.
With DMC1 I used to try to fight the Blades as stylish as possible, even in cramped arenas. Or go against the Plasma enemies intentionally with Alastor. Which for newer players to the game, isn't the most efficient way to play at all because Alastor strikes cause Plasma to divide in two - creating more work, but from my point of view, more opportunity.
For DMC2, even though it was rough on the edges..it had potential and I enjoyed that part of it thoroughly. Flipping like a maniac, using Wall Run into Rainstorm, air juggling enemies. I logged in a ridiculous amount of hours just on these 2 games alone.
Again, playing stylishly.
Sure, I S ranked them, but that was never my focus. And I'm not saying I was the first ever to do these sorts of things, as most people probably played the game because they thought Dante looked cool doing whatever. But hopefully, you'll understand the importance of the mention as we progress.
DMC3: Pre-Release. Late 04 - Early 05
So when DMC3 was announced everybody was cautiously hyped for it due to the letdown that was DMC2. That was when I started to become super active on the IGN boards, wanting any and every bit of information I could get.
Fortunately, Capcom decided to go back to a similar strategy they had with DMC1 and made a demo available. Unfortunately, not everybody was able to access this demo unlike when the original DMC1 demo was released, as it was press-focused. However, a few players were able to get their hands on it. The three main players of note to start recording early footage of the DMC3 demo were Gemasis Sydawn, DSS, and VJDante.
They released footage of all the styles available in the demo, those being the default 4: Trickster, Gunslinger, Swordmaster, and Royal Guard. It's also worth noting that the demo had features that weren't present in the full game, such as Dante having a full combo after performing sword pierce, flips instead of trickster dash, no prop - just shedder, and different taunts. Gemasis went the hardest, starting a style series that continued well into the game's release, "The Deadly Styles".
Gemasis is one of the most underrated players of the DMC series. Underrated because he literally had the game on his back, not only releasing early high-level footage but also creating a site that promoted it heavily. That site was thehandvseye.com (HVE) and sadly, the site is no longer online. This also means Gemasis' early videos are lost but hopefully, that'll change soon.
High-level play of the game then would be considered basic compared to now, but the idea is vital.
"Doing it because it looked cool".
So even though landing Crazy Roll (a Nevan Swordmaster-style move) on multiple enemies nowadays isn't "OMG amazing", it was back then and that's important because of the idea. An idea is something that can grow. And that's not to downplay Gemasis, as he's a great player and his Royal Guard was and is next level, but this is extremely early in the game's life. Technically, the game hadn't even been released yet.
DMC3: Japanese Release. February 2005
Within this time period, some new players were discovered from the eastern forefront. Kazak, was a Royal Guard Boss Battle specialist. Taking them out with brutal efficiency and excellent mastery of the style considering how early in the game's cycle we were in. Only Gemasis at the time was generally around the same level, though he took more risks and focused on stylish RG play.
Kazak - Agni and Rudra Royal Guard
The other player around this time doing footage was Hwoarang. Unfortunately, I'm not able to find any of him, but take my word for it he was great at boss battles. He wasn't as focused on using Royal Guard as a means to an end as Kazak was. If I recall correctly, he was the first to start to use Swordmaster Rebellion / Nevan to take out Leviathan.
For the time being, the Japanese players were honed in on efficiency rather than just playing to be "stylish". Gemasis was still the main guy putting out stylish focused footage of the game, due to getting a copy of the Japanese release. I would consider Gem to be one of the founding fathers of stylish play.
DMC3: North America and UK Release. March 2005 - April 2005
In this time period, 2 more notable players come from the western front. Spyda12 and myself. I had met Spyda12 earlier in 2004, at the college I was attending. Overheard him talking about DMC, introduced myself and we started conversing about the series. I showed him all the glitches and tech for DMC1 and introduced him to the IGN boards. Later, DMC3 was released and we both got the game and started playing.
We quickly beat normal and the harder difficulties. After two weeks, I remember going on the IGN boards and saying that we were already pretty good, something that they doubted. So, I decided I wanted to prove them wrong and do a style video showcasing my skill and I asked Spyda if he wanted to as well, which he did.
At the time I used my college's digitizing equipment to take our VHS recorded footage and created the Art of Combat series. Now that I think about it, I suppose you could consider AoC to be the first "collab" style video for DMC. We started recording around 3 weeks after the game's initial release and I edited both of our videos and released them around April.
AoC is rudimentary now, but you can see ideas that would mature.
Remember, the idea of style. Remember, ideas can grow.
My focus was to make these videos as stylish as possible. I wanted it to seem as if you were watching a John Woo/Matrix film and Dante was the star. The series is one of the first to include jump canceling in a style video outside of the video Capcom included in the game. The series also contains the first "Sweet Baby" recorded on footage during Spyda12's gameplay on Art of Combat 1.
Spyda12 is also underrated. At the time he came up with excellent combinations on the fly. My favorite is buffering Wildstomp from Artemis Multilock into Acid Rain, followed by Agni and Rudra crazy combo.
Again, simple, but extremely stylish.
Although he never really got the chance to shine due to life circumstances, I'll always put him up there because of his innate ability to operate outside of the box and his originality. Definitely one of my greatest rivals and best friends.
I decided to split the videos by style, showcasing all styles except for Doppelganger.
Art of Combat 1 - Spyda12
Art of Combat 2
Overall it was decently received, but I remember Pokey86 criticizing my Royal Guard skills at the time. He stated that they were weaker than my gameplay for the other styles and like Michael Jordan in The Last Dance - I took that personally (lol). And yes, Pokey and DantelinkX were around during the time but they hadn't released any video footage of themselves playing so that's why I haven't included them - yet.
Another player that is often forgotten around this time period is Venom. He was a partner with Gemasis on HVE and released videos utilizing different styles. Because of the loss of the HVE site, his footage from this era is unavailable.
DMC3: Early to Mid 2005.
I'm not exactly sure about the order of release between these next two, but I remember seeing PandaAttack's videos first.
PandaAttack is the next player to introduce a video about 2-3 weeks after Art of Combat premiered, that isn't titled. He then dropped his most well-known video called BloodyJunk. It is an Abyss-focused combo video that started to expand using jump canceling and on an enemy not commonly comboed so early in the game's life cycle. What makes this video so great is not only the jump canceling but thinking outside of the box. Using enemy patterns against them, spacing, buffering attacks, using jump to cancel crazy combos mid-combo, great ground weapon switching, and more.
I've realized I'm using the term "jump cancel" a lot, and some newer players may not be as familiar. Jump cancel is the original term for what is now known as "Enemy Step" in DMC4 and DMC5. This is Dante's ability to cancel an airborne action by "jumping"/"stepping" on an enemy's hitbox. I'm an old head so I'll continue to refer to it as "jump cancel", but please keep in mind "jump cancel = enemy step".
PandaAttack - Old Combo Video
PandaAttack - Bloody Junk
Next, a Japanese player, known in English as Prince of Devil, dropped Hell Sloth = Dead shortly after and totally changed the game. This video defined what it meant to be a "pro-DMC3 player" at the time and propelled DMC into being a combo-oriented game rather than just a stylish one or even an efficiency-based one. It is the blueprint for making a DMC combo video. It's a pioneer when it comes to combo formula (excellent ground weapon switching), combo tech (like buffering and positioning), using jump cancels, format, and music. It was the bar, and if you weren't approaching it then you were subpar.
Due to the mass appeal of this video, being stylish often became associated with long, elaborate, pre-planned combos, which isn't always the case. This partly ended up influencing why True Style was created. There's another combo video for DMC3 that's credited to Prince of Devil, but it's hard to find. He was one of the first Japanese players on tape to play outside of being efficient. Although it pushed the "idea of stylish" more towards extravagant combos, HSID still had a major hand in promoting style over efficiency.
Prince of Devil - Hell Sloth = Dead
I think this is a good spot to end for this first blog. The first half of the first year of the "forgotten era" may be akin to basic math to veterans now, but it is crucial because this is the foundation of what would come. Hopefully, you've been able to see how DMC gradually morphed from a game focused on efficiency, into one centered on true style. Hope you enjoyed this read. Read Part 2 here.
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