Vincent's acrobatic movements and the responsiveness of the controls when doing the game's various maneuvers is, to me, one of the more beautiful parts of the game. The beauty is only stained by the limited applicability of Vincent's double-jump and the added ability of shooting in mid-air. It feels good to shoot in mid-air but as I've learned from playing the original JP version, the single player campaign was not designed with aerial combat strategies in mind. Even so, I often do various double-jumps, backwards jumps and melee just because it feels good. The stiffness of Zack's movement in Crisis Core is frustrating in comparison.
Dirge of Cerberus is thus far mockingly glitchless in terms of the player character's movement. The programming for all the maneuvers is just so solid that it seems equally watertight from exploitable glitches as the game's wall- and ground collision. I bring this up because I did find a glitch today. It has no real exploit potential at the current time but I am still happy to have found at least ONE obscure glitch in Vincent's movement. Some details before we get into the glitch.
Midair mechanics of Vincent Valentine
If you are playing the post-original releases of DoC, Vincent can perform various actions in mid-air: Shooting, melee and an additional jump.
When in free fall from a simple ground- or double jump, the game doesn't put any restrictions on how many melee strikes you can perform in midair. The only "limit" is that after you've performed the first chain of beautiful midair strikes, the next set of strikes will use the animations for Vincent's ground-melee chain. It will look like Vincent is performing melee strikes on solid ground even though he is clearly falling. This little oddity aside, if you were to fall for infinity you'd still be able to use melee for however long you'd like.
Shooting while in midair does reveal some restrictions if you end up experimenting with it.
Most players will only experience machine guns firing anything from 6 shots maximum to 12 shots maximum while in midair. The internal stat for your firing speed is at value 0 (equivalent to almost no delay) when you are at maximum speed and higher values indicate a longer delay.
Fire, Thunder and Blizzard do not have the above restrictions and can be fired indefinitely while the player character is in free fall.
One needless restriction I found is that the Auto Reloader item doesn't fully function in midair. This item makes it so that the reloading animation is skipped and your gun immediately loads the next clip without delay, assuming you have any ammo left. Unfortunately the Auto Reloader will only load the next ammo clip so long as you are on the ground.
If you want to reload in midair you need to employ the "Menu Reload" trick. The game is programmed so that when you change ANYTHING in any of your three weapon slots, that weapon slot will have its gun reloaded. Playing on Normal difficulty mode, the game will freeze when you enter the menu thus giving you all the time you need to auto-reload a weapon and bypass any reload animations! Menu Reload still works in the harder difficulties but because the game continues playing even while in the menu you'll find it near impossible to do a midair Menu Reload before touching the ground.
As an aside, you are normally restricted from switching weapon slots while you are above ground. This can be bypassed by entering the menu...or by using melee. For some reason, while doing midair melee strikes you are able to switch weapons. Quite odd behavior.
Switching weapons can't be used to increase your total number of midair shots. For example if you've fired three handgun shots and then switch to a high-speed machine gun, you'll only have nine shots maximum left to fire (3 + 9 = 12) before the game says that you can't perform any more midair shots.
This leads me to some neat nuances of Vincent's movement that I had not considered before. If you perform a double-jump and then fall off a ledge you will NOT be able to perform a jump while you are still falling! The game, surprisingly enough, has not reset the value to indicate that the double-jump is available. You must perform a normal ground-jump for this value to reset so that the second jump becomes available.
This also applies to raising the aiming reticle. The game limits you to raising the aiming reticle ONCE per midair event. But it needs you to perform a ground-jump to reset this. So if you jump, raise the reticle, cancel the gun aim, land and then finally fall off a ledge...you won't be able to raise the reticle again before you've landed on the ground.
The same was true for midair shooting. If you max out your midair bullet shots, land and fall off a ledge you will not be able to fire any bullets. The game REALLY wants you to reset the values with a proper ground jump!
The Midair-shot Overflow Glitch
The variable that keeps track of how many shots have been fired in midair is a signed 1-byte integer which means it takes on values ranging from -128 to 127. The value is 0 by default and then counts upwards as you shoot in free fall. If the value is 2 you can't fire more rifle bullets, if it's 3 you can't fire more handgun bullets, etc.
The signed 1-byte integer resets to 0 when you...
- Perform a ground jump.
- Progress through chapters/cutscenes/checkpoints.
- Select "Release" on a ladder mid-climb.
- Start a new Extra Mission.
If you are able to get this value up to 127 and then increment it by 1, the normal restrictions on how many bullets you can fire in midair will no longer apply! So long as the variable is not reset to 0, you'll be able to fire freely so long as this variable has a negative value. For each shot fired the value is changed by +1, same as always. -128, -127, -126, -125 ... -3, -2, -1 and then finally back around to 0 and then the normal rules apply once again. The glitch thus gives you 128 midair shots for free plus whatever remains when the normal rules resume.
The only way to increment this value beyond 12 is by repeatedly using magic spells while in free fall. Remember that magic doesn't have any restriction on how many times it can be fired in midair and thus it becomes our ticket to triggering this glitch.
Let's say that we've used the machine gun to reach a value of 12, now we just need to increment it 116 times by using Fire Lv1. The spell consumes 14 MP, the least amount of any available magic spell in the post-original versions of DoC, yet this still means we need to consume a total of 1624 MP. The only "reasonable" way to have enough MP is by equipping Manasoul which gradually restores your MP but even with this item and some MP restoratives to help it will still take a really long time to cause the overflow. That's not even mentioning the difficulty of keeping count on your number of free-fall magic shots and making sure you don't accidentally count a Fire Lv1 spell that was fired when you actually stood on solid ground.
There is currently zero use for this glitch in any context. I was investigating potential ways of making Vincent ascend to higher heights than normal so that speedrunners might skip certain segments of the game. Jumping over EM barriers won't happen with our current knowledge however. Even with cheats to give myself limitless midair shots and by giving the gun more recoil than normal, it took 2000 BULLETS to traverse above an EM barrier...and that's when I had already ascended with a double jump. You may carry no more than 500 bullets of any ammo type, so clearly ascending above EM barriers with the help of midair-gun-recoil is not an option.
While making the video demonstration I also noticed a nuance of Vincent's movement that happens regardless of the overflow glitch: When Vincent has fired a machine gun while in free fall, the game will remember Vincent's accelerated downwards speed even after you reach the ground and then enter free fall again. That's what happens in 0:17 at the video. Vincent descends at great speed, the machine gun recoil for some reason no longer having a decelerating effect on his fall. For some reason handguns and rifles do not exhibit this behavior of "forgetting" their own recoil properties. But so long as you perform a ground jump, Vincent's properties will be "reset" once more and the recoil of the machine gun will resume.
I could observe that no matter how well I reloaded the machine gun, any height gained from firing straight down is limited to the size of your clip. In this case, the 99-bullet ammo clip of the Sonic Griffon. Reloading after this point is pointless because the gun can no longer suspend you in midair with its recoil.
It pleases me that the movement is more glitched than I expected. The ultimate dream would be to find a movement exploit that allowed you to skip large chunks of the game. The way things are looking now however...the programming of Vincent Valentine's movement is just too gosh darn good.
Dirge of Cerberus is thus far mockingly glitchless in terms of the player character's movement. The programming for all the maneuvers is just so solid that it seems equally watertight from exploitable glitches as the game's wall- and ground collision. I bring this up because I did find a glitch today. It has no real exploit potential at the current time but I am still happy to have found at least ONE obscure glitch in Vincent's movement. Some details before we get into the glitch.
Midair mechanics of Vincent Valentine
If you are playing the post-original releases of DoC, Vincent can perform various actions in mid-air: Shooting, melee and an additional jump.
When in free fall from a simple ground- or double jump, the game doesn't put any restrictions on how many melee strikes you can perform in midair. The only "limit" is that after you've performed the first chain of beautiful midair strikes, the next set of strikes will use the animations for Vincent's ground-melee chain. It will look like Vincent is performing melee strikes on solid ground even though he is clearly falling. This little oddity aside, if you were to fall for infinity you'd still be able to use melee for however long you'd like.
Shooting while in midair does reveal some restrictions if you end up experimenting with it.
Handgun: 3 midair shots maximum.
Rifle: 2 midair shots maximum.
Machine gun: Dependent on the firing rate stats of your setup, with the final cap ranging from 1 to 12 shots maximum.
Most players will only experience machine guns firing anything from 6 shots maximum to 12 shots maximum while in midair. The internal stat for your firing speed is at value 0 (equivalent to almost no delay) when you are at maximum speed and higher values indicate a longer delay.
Fire, Thunder and Blizzard do not have the above restrictions and can be fired indefinitely while the player character is in free fall.
Code:
Left column: Maximum midair shots with machine gun
Right column: Internal firing rate of weapon slot
12 0 - 5
11 6
10 7
9 8
8 9
7 10
6 11 - 13
5 14 - 16
4 17 - 20
3 21 - 28
2 29 - 43
1 44 and upOne needless restriction I found is that the Auto Reloader item doesn't fully function in midair. This item makes it so that the reloading animation is skipped and your gun immediately loads the next clip without delay, assuming you have any ammo left. Unfortunately the Auto Reloader will only load the next ammo clip so long as you are on the ground.
If you want to reload in midair you need to employ the "Menu Reload" trick. The game is programmed so that when you change ANYTHING in any of your three weapon slots, that weapon slot will have its gun reloaded. Playing on Normal difficulty mode, the game will freeze when you enter the menu thus giving you all the time you need to auto-reload a weapon and bypass any reload animations! Menu Reload still works in the harder difficulties but because the game continues playing even while in the menu you'll find it near impossible to do a midair Menu Reload before touching the ground.
As an aside, you are normally restricted from switching weapon slots while you are above ground. This can be bypassed by entering the menu...or by using melee. For some reason, while doing midair melee strikes you are able to switch weapons. Quite odd behavior.
Switching weapons can't be used to increase your total number of midair shots. For example if you've fired three handgun shots and then switch to a high-speed machine gun, you'll only have nine shots maximum left to fire (3 + 9 = 12) before the game says that you can't perform any more midair shots.
This leads me to some neat nuances of Vincent's movement that I had not considered before. If you perform a double-jump and then fall off a ledge you will NOT be able to perform a jump while you are still falling! The game, surprisingly enough, has not reset the value to indicate that the double-jump is available. You must perform a normal ground-jump for this value to reset so that the second jump becomes available.
This also applies to raising the aiming reticle. The game limits you to raising the aiming reticle ONCE per midair event. But it needs you to perform a ground-jump to reset this. So if you jump, raise the reticle, cancel the gun aim, land and then finally fall off a ledge...you won't be able to raise the reticle again before you've landed on the ground.
The same was true for midair shooting. If you max out your midair bullet shots, land and fall off a ledge you will not be able to fire any bullets. The game REALLY wants you to reset the values with a proper ground jump!
The Midair-shot Overflow Glitch
The variable that keeps track of how many shots have been fired in midair is a signed 1-byte integer which means it takes on values ranging from -128 to 127. The value is 0 by default and then counts upwards as you shoot in free fall. If the value is 2 you can't fire more rifle bullets, if it's 3 you can't fire more handgun bullets, etc.
The signed 1-byte integer resets to 0 when you...
- Perform a ground jump.
- Progress through chapters/cutscenes/checkpoints.
- Select "Release" on a ladder mid-climb.
- Start a new Extra Mission.
If you are able to get this value up to 127 and then increment it by 1, the normal restrictions on how many bullets you can fire in midair will no longer apply! So long as the variable is not reset to 0, you'll be able to fire freely so long as this variable has a negative value. For each shot fired the value is changed by +1, same as always. -128, -127, -126, -125 ... -3, -2, -1 and then finally back around to 0 and then the normal rules apply once again. The glitch thus gives you 128 midair shots for free plus whatever remains when the normal rules resume.
The only way to increment this value beyond 12 is by repeatedly using magic spells while in free fall. Remember that magic doesn't have any restriction on how many times it can be fired in midair and thus it becomes our ticket to triggering this glitch.
Let's say that we've used the machine gun to reach a value of 12, now we just need to increment it 116 times by using Fire Lv1. The spell consumes 14 MP, the least amount of any available magic spell in the post-original versions of DoC, yet this still means we need to consume a total of 1624 MP. The only "reasonable" way to have enough MP is by equipping Manasoul which gradually restores your MP but even with this item and some MP restoratives to help it will still take a really long time to cause the overflow. That's not even mentioning the difficulty of keeping count on your number of free-fall magic shots and making sure you don't accidentally count a Fire Lv1 spell that was fired when you actually stood on solid ground.
There is currently zero use for this glitch in any context. I was investigating potential ways of making Vincent ascend to higher heights than normal so that speedrunners might skip certain segments of the game. Jumping over EM barriers won't happen with our current knowledge however. Even with cheats to give myself limitless midair shots and by giving the gun more recoil than normal, it took 2000 BULLETS to traverse above an EM barrier...and that's when I had already ascended with a double jump. You may carry no more than 500 bullets of any ammo type, so clearly ascending above EM barriers with the help of midair-gun-recoil is not an option.
While making the video demonstration I also noticed a nuance of Vincent's movement that happens regardless of the overflow glitch: When Vincent has fired a machine gun while in free fall, the game will remember Vincent's accelerated downwards speed even after you reach the ground and then enter free fall again. That's what happens in 0:17 at the video. Vincent descends at great speed, the machine gun recoil for some reason no longer having a decelerating effect on his fall. For some reason handguns and rifles do not exhibit this behavior of "forgetting" their own recoil properties. But so long as you perform a ground jump, Vincent's properties will be "reset" once more and the recoil of the machine gun will resume.
I could observe that no matter how well I reloaded the machine gun, any height gained from firing straight down is limited to the size of your clip. In this case, the 99-bullet ammo clip of the Sonic Griffon. Reloading after this point is pointless because the gun can no longer suspend you in midair with its recoil.
It pleases me that the movement is more glitched than I expected. The ultimate dream would be to find a movement exploit that allowed you to skip large chunks of the game. The way things are looking now however...the programming of Vincent Valentine's movement is just too gosh darn good.
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