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DCFFVII Research Thread

When Dirge makes you rage so much you want to punch a hole through the ground, you know it's time to stop. Seriously. My mind is snapping.

I have researched the variations of two scenes in Chapter 1. Because I number scenes according to the Event Viewer which doesn't include all the scenes, I label the omitted "inbetween" scenes as Scene-X-1, Scene-X-2 etc. The two scenes I researched are Scene-10-2 and Scene-10-4.

10-1: Vincent meets up with WRO soldier who can sell supplies, talk about the WRO and tell where the church is.
10-2: The saved WRO members in the caféteria alley (right path after 10-1) thank Vincent. If nobody is saved there is no cutscene.
10-3: Three WRO members and four civilians are grouped in a corner (left path after 10-1) and are then discovered by Deepground.
10-4: A WRO member or a civilian from scene 10-3 will thank Vincent for the rescue.


In regards to scene 10-2 there were no surprises. Each of the three soldiers has a pre-determined line and it is spoken if that soldier survives. Those who survive will speak. Simple as that.

zPlakQK.png

Unlike the majority of scenes though, both 10-2 and 10-4 will have Vincent's model reflect his equipped gun and barrel. Normally the default model, no matter your equipment, will be to show Vincent with the Cerberus and Normal Barrel. Equipment such as scopes (blue accessory type) and crosses (the red accessory type) are not shown. In Ex Hard mode you will already have the Hydra in your inventory, so that weapon model can be seen in 10-2. For some reason though scene 10-4 can't show Vincent with the Hydra and will instead have Vincent's model with the Cerberus and Short Barrel.

If you trigger either cutscene while in Galian Beast form, Vincent's model will have the Cerberus and Short Barrel. So scene 10-2 and 10-4 have a lot of variations when it comes to which gun and barrel Vincent will be shown to have in both cutscenes.

With scene 10-4, the cutscene variations surrounding the saved WRO members and civilians become a little complicated. Here is my research.


We have three WRO members and four civilians. No matter which WRO member survives, or if one, two or three survive, you get the same two lines with the same exact voice clip.
"WRO Member: Sir! Thank you for your support, sir!"
"WRO Member: And good luck."

This ignores that scene 10-3 allows us to hear three distinct voices for the WRO members. This situation is quite fortunate though because I have no way of distinguishing between the WRO members while they are fighting off Deepground.

If none of the WRO members survive, then a civilian survivor will speak. If two or more civilians survive, the NPC will have two lines.
"Thank you. Thank you very much."
"And good luck."

If only one civilian survives, the NPC will only speak the first line.
"Thank you. Thank you very much."

This implies that there exists a scenario where the WRO Member will only speak his first line. However, I simply can't control the game enough so that only one or more WRO members survive and no civilians. The DG units attack the WRO guys too eagerly for me to group the enemy with the civilians in time. Even if I manage to lure one or two DG soldiers to the civilians, the surviving WRO members will quickly shoot down those few enemies I have lured to kill civilians. Ergo, this implied scene 10-4 scenario of the WRO Member speaking only his first line is impossible for me to unlock and I can't be sure if it even exists.

Who among the civilian NPCs speak is determined by which of the survivors have "top priority" in the code. In the video below, from 0:24 and onwards, I show the civilian NPCs starting with the highest priority NPC to the lowest priority NPC. I also show that civilian as they speak both lines or only the first line (the latter which happens when they are the sole survivor).



With the final guy, the one with the brown-beige sweater, I can't unlock a variation where he also says "And good luck." because if any other civilian survives then he or she will be the one to speak. It is possible that a hidden scene exists where this NPC of lowest priority says "And good luck." but I can't confirm this without learning how to hack the game.

In short there are still some question marks surrounding scene 10-4 but I have unlocked all the scene variations that are available within reasonable parameters.

So what was that about my rage at the beginning of this post? Well I was trying to unlock the two final variations of the "only civilians survived" scenario. Strictly speaking unlocking these were not necessary because I had already proved the patterns but I wanted to unlock them for the sake of completion. First I forgot to record one specific variation...twice. Then I repeatedly failed to get the desired civilian kills/survivors. This is not like the Chapter 8 Scene 6 scene where I can easily manipulate what the friends and enemies will do. >___>

It feels good to finally know the structure behind the scene 10-4 variations. If we had a DC Ultimania I wouldn't have to figure this stuff out myself though. :monster:
 
- When I was unlocking the Scene 10-4 variations I discovered that you can actually return to the office building. The one where you meet with Cait Sith dressed up as Reeve. You can move around freely, like roaming the TV room or locking yourself in the cleaning cupboard.

bCDPNYX.png

- Turns out there were more changes done to the controls between JORG and post-JORG than I had already discovered.

Post-JORG, dashing against an enemy will briefly stun them, without causing visible damage. Dashing against boxes will destroy them after three hits. This is true both for Vincent in his normal form and in his Galian Beast form.

In JORG, only Galian Beast can dash (EDIT: Well, Chaos can dash too :P). You may remember that Vincent has a roll move in JORG instead of a dash. However, neither the roll nor the dash (of Galian Beast) has any visible effect on neither boxes nor enemies.

Another thing about the dash move of Galian Beast is that in JORG you can't interrupt the dash move by pressing the jump button. You have to complete the full dash and have Vincent lose momentum before you can perform any new action. Post-JORG, it is possible to jump mid-dash and thusly not have to suffer an inevitable loss of momentum from when the dash ends.


- Thought I'd leave you all blue-balled for the Japanese variations of Scene 10-4, eh? ;)

 
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Finally did something I should have done forever ago. I revisited the English Canon: The mistaken capitalization of ‘Weapon’ article and replaced the two old Dirge of Cerberus camera photos with two way more good-looking snapshots. The gallery thumbnails don't line up perfectly anymore for some reason but I can live with that.

Although Omega is classified as a Weapon, Omega is never called with the full name "Omega Weapon". Fans will often write "Omega Weapon" but the game itself never does, not even in the Extra Features where you can look up Character Models and Artwork.

I wonder if this means that were the characters to say the Weapon names from OG out loud they would say for example "Diamond" or "Sapphire" and never add "Weapon" to the name. Either that or Dirge of Cerberus wants to distinguish Omega (Weapon) from the Weapons that were created in case the Cetra hadn't imprisoned Jenova 2000 years prior.

While we are on the subject, the Term List from the DC Complete Guide classifies Chaos as a Weapon. This is so far the only instance in any official FFVII material that we have seen Chaos receive this classification. Chaos is never referred to as a Weapon in Dirge of Cerberus. Curiously, in the one and only scene Chaos is referred to as being a "gene". This reminds me of the 'Devil Gene' from Tekken. It wouldn't surprise me if this is a common trope for Japanese games especially to just add the term "gene" to something magical and thus give it a magi-tech or magi-bio feel.
 
- YES!!! :excited: I actually managed to trigger a variation of Scene 10-4 in Chapter 1 where there is only one WRO survivor and no civilian survivors. As expected, the cutscene ends before the WRO soldier would have said "And good luck."

The trick to unlocking this is to immediately go the left path when the WRO squad splits up. By being really quick you can trigger Scene 10-3 while the WRO soldiers are still running up the stairs. Although they will be positioned right with the civilians in the cutscene, when Scene 10-3 ends the soldiers will still be at the edge of the stairs. This way I was able to push one WRO dude down the stairs and separate him from the group.

Note: This variation was triggered while playing the NTSC-US version.


Triggering this variation in JORG is still impossible for me though. Due to Vincent's slow running, I can't trigger Scene 10-3 before the dudes make it beyond the stairs. When the soldiers have reached this far it seems impossible to push them down the stairs. =/


- Your instinct, based on old playthroughs, is normally to take the right path when the squad splits up because you immediately hear gunfire from the WRO members who took the right path. You feel panicked to help these soldiers first because you think that they'll die if you don't hurry. Today I discovered however that this is not the case! Before going beyond a certain border, both the WRO members and the DG soldiers of the caféteria alley are invincible. No numbers are displayed above their heads when the animations and voice clips suggest that they should be receiving damage. I stood from afar for twenty minutes and nobody died!

FxOGSxM.png

Once you pass that line, both your allies and your enemies can receive actual damage. Retreating from the area will not undo this effect and make them invincible again.


- Version difference discovered in Ex Hard Mode! :D

This pertains to the first area where you have to save WRO soldiers. In Ex Hard Mode, DG soldiers will come running through a gate that has an EM barricade. (This is different from Normal- and Hard Mode, where it is the WRO soldiers who come through the gate and attack the DG soldiers already in the area) Here is where we spot a difference.

NTSC-US: When the final DG soldier is defeated, he/she will leave behind a cardkey for you to use to deactivate the EM barricade.
YD6BeD4.png

PAL & INT: When the final DG soldier is defeated the EM barricade is automatically deactivated. No cardkey, as it is superfluous. This is yet another example of how the DC:International files are based on the PAL release.
 
- Confirmed that in JORG, Chaos's dash can't be interrupted by the player. Post-JORG, it can be interrupted by jumping, using a melee attack or raising your weapon (R1). This is just the same as with Galian Beast's dash.

- Do these look like any discernible Japanese symbols to anyone? If yes, what do they mean?
W2lCbK0.png
 
Thank you tons, hito! Unfortunately I'm convinced that even if we ripped the texture directly from the game files, the smaller text would be impossible to read. This is the case for most of the sign text in Dirge of Cerberus. The signs are simply way too fuzzy. Gief HD version plx.
 
- Finally figured out why the Cait Sith segment is so much more difficult in JORG. The soldiers, the first one in particular, will instantly spot you if you are running in close vicinity to that soldier, even if you are hiding behind a box. Run for even a millisecond and you will be spotted. Post-JORG, you can run without being automatically spotted.

- For no reason other than boasting, here is a smooth run of me defeating the first Black Widow in JORG, Normal Mode.

 
Phew! Took snapshots and made recordings of all the non-cutscene script on the Shera both in JORG and JINT. This was both to increase my resources and to make exact comparisons between the Japanese text of both versions.

After painstakingly comparing each paragraph of the non-cutscene Shera script in JORG and JINT, I have found that there are only three places where the text was changed. More specifically, we are talking about one omission and two additions. All three examples are from the upper decks of the ship.

The first example is already known to veterans of this thread. A WRO NPC turns out to be one of the Highwind crew from three years earlier. In the English game, he was given a few voiced line that matched nothing in the original Japanese release, so additional paragraphs were added for JINT to match with those extra lines.

JINT:
uI8yYfH.png


uDN2Kk0.png


gVujOMS.png

The female WRO member who is looking out the window and talking about the sunset had the line ホント ("honto" supposedly meaning "really") omitted for JINT.

JORG:
Nzi2KoL.png


JINT:
v4Kq8uj.png


In the room with the changing ceiling, one male WRO member talks about how amazing this technology is. The first two paragraphs differ between JORG and JINT, but the change is actually really small. All that's happened is that the first paragraph in JINT includes the NPC saying "Sir!" to Vincent, then his original first paragraph where he says "Did you notice the ceiling?" has been moved to the top of the second paragraph.

JORG:
JCJGIYN.png


ctGh4eO.png



JINT:
UQh1cDM.png


mfefCJo.png

Yet again hours of work has been committed to find only very small, insignificant changes. At least I'm finding more than these guys.


- You may or may not remember the three Epiolnis birds at the start of Chapter 6. They are easily startled and two of them will run away while one will run towards Vincent. By now I will have replayed the beginning of Chapter 6 well over a hundred times, for various reasons, one of them being my pursuit to find the easiest way of defeating all three Epiolnis birds.

Up until very recently my strategy involved Lv3 magic and kill chains to boost the power of said magic. This seemed to be the only way. But when Lv3 magic turned out to be too weak in JORG (Normal Mode) to defeat three or two Epiolnis birds at once, even with the highest available kill chain at that point in the stage, I was forced to experiment even further.

Turns out...there is a very specific area you can stand on where the bird foes won't be startled if you shoot them from that spot.

JN0Y9Io.png

Walk too far and you'll startle the birds. Fire from too far away and you'll startle the birds...because Dirge of Cerberus logic! You can use the log to the left as a reference when you choose where to shoot from. Walk up to the log but no further than that, to be safe. Fire from this spot and the Epiolnis birds will act as though there is no danger at all even when you headshot them one by one.

Sometimes they drop loot, sometimes they don't.



At the end I show a glitch that so far I have only managed to trigger in JORG and with the bird that is programmed to run towards Vincent. Knock the bird back with a Thunder Lv3 shot, without killing it, and the bird will stay down even though it is still alive. Because the model is still solid, you can push it around. When damaging the poor bird with melee attacks you will hear it grunting. Obviously the bird wasn't meant to act this way.
 
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- Tres has translated some bits from the Crisis Core Complete Guide which are relevant to Dirge of Cerberus. The first translations were posted in his Timeline Inconsistency thread and the most recent translation was posted as a visitor message on my profile. For ease of reference I copy-paste all those translations in this post. Many thanks to our one and only Twilight Mexican!

CC Complete Guide pg. 13 said:
ネロとヴァイスは「ツヴィエ―ト」と呼ばれる特殊なソルジャ―。

どちらも、ジェネシスの因子を得ることで、強大な力を持つに至る。

------

Nero and Weiss are special SOLDIERs called "Tsviets."

Both received Genesis's genes, leading to them possessing incredible powers.

CC Complete Guide pg. 288 and 289 said:
ソルジャーの瞳
ザックスをはじめ、魔晄を浴びたソルジャーは瞳の奥に青い輝きが生じる。例外はディープグラウンドソルジャーの色の字(あざな)が与えられたツヴィエートで、彼らの中には 赤や黄色の瞳となった者が存在する。

------

SOLDIER eyes
Having been showered in mako, SOLDIERs like Zack have a blue/green glow emanate from the back of their eyes. In the Tsviet division of Deepground, some of those who have been assigned titles with a color are an exception to this, having red or yellow eyes.


CC Complete Guide pg. 298 said:
我らの兄
ヴァイスがジェネシスを評したセリフ。『DC』では詳細が明かされなかった《G》というコードネームとも関係があることだが、これはヴァイスらディープグラウンドソルジャ ーの一部に《G》、すなわちジェネシスの因子が注入されていることに起因する。直接的な血縁関があるわけではないが、因子注入による細胞単位での結や、それにともなう精神 的な絆などによって、「兄」と比喩しているようだ。

------

Our brother
What Weiss likens Genesis to. Though the details were left vague, from DC we learned that there is a relationship between codename "G" and the division of Deepground SOlDIER that includes Weiss and company; this is related to the fact that they have been imbued with Genesis's genetic factor. Though they don't have a direct sanguine relation to one another, they do share a biological connection thanks to the imbued genetic factor, as well the psychological ties associated with that — making Genesis their "brother" metaphorically speaking.



- I am halfway through recording all the scenes in JORG, as they are triggered via gameplay (not the Event Viewer). For the first time I have acquired Guard N Barrel on Normal Mode in JORG, defeated all 15 choppers (that actually turned out to be a bigger challenge than getting the Guard N Barrel) and I may say that my most recent ranking results for Chapter 6 are quite nice. :D

HJgcYtQ.png


Highest kill count I have ever achieved in this stage. If I had played super-seriously I would definitely have cleared the stage fast enough for S ranking in the Time Expired category.


Requirements for S ranking in JORG, Chapter 6, according to the DC Complete Guide:
Targets Destroyed - 120 or more
Accuracy Rate - 70% or more
Damage Sustained - 3999 or less
Critical Hits - 125 or more
Killchains - 80 or more
Items used - 3 or fewer
Limit Break Used - 5 times or more
Mako Collected - 90% or more
Times KO'd - 0
Time Expired - Less than 25 minutes


How does this differ from the requirements on Normal and Hard Mode, post-JORG? Apart from the obvious difference that post-JORG ranks "Magic Used" and not "Limit Break Used", these two categories are different according to the Bradygames guide:
Damage Sustained - 3800 or less
Items used - 6 or fewer

The reason I have such a low item use in JORG is because transforming into Galian Beast heals Vincent. With Galian Beast not being as readily available post-JORG, it makes sense to make the S ranking requirement for "Items used" less harsh post-JORG. Although it's not unusual that I use as few as three items when I clear Chapter 6 in those versions. :P
 
Chapter 8-2, "Fight for the Central Complex", has a habit of putting me in a really bad mood... >_> I dare say it is the worst chapter of them all. The stage itself is the worst and the Rosso boss fight is also the worst. Everything works against you so you get bad rankings in the Target Accuracy, Damage Sustained, & Items Used category. The side missions (defeating the two Black Widows and saving the WRO members) are easily failed or at least partially failed. The friggin' sentries (red saucer robots) move so erratically that their presence feels unfair. I have already written rants about how annoying the Rosso boss fight is. Almost without a doubt, Chapter 8-2 will be the stage it takes me the longest to achieve All S Rankings in, regardless of the version or difficulty mode I'm playing.

That said I am slowly learning good strategies. Like with many boss battles, the key to the Rosso fight is to enter with a high killchain. I managed to enter the battle with a 9 killchain (10 targets defeated in a row). With my high-powered equipment, consisting of Powered Cerberus + Nova L Barrel + Power Booster Gamma, this killchain plus a perfect headshot to Rosso caused 9838 in damage. Almost maximum damage! Although the first phase of the battle is easy, beginning the battle this way and making Rosso instantly enter her "Bloodstained Rosso" phase cuts down on the battle time and therefore the damage you are likely to sustain.

ogaywXz.png

(Yes the image is supposed to be cut this way)

1/4th of her HP depleted in one shot. Nice. This data applies at least to Normal Mode in JORG.

Mastering the art of the killchain can be crucial for boss battles and often enough the stages are designed so the player has a chance to build up a big killchain before a boss battle begins.



- Noticed yet another easy-to-miss difference between JORG and post-JORG versions. When Vincent is revived via a Phoenix Down, he will be frozen in position for about half a second if you are playing JORG. In the post-JORG releases, Vincent is instantly able to move freely when he is revived. In all versions there is a short period of invincibility when Vincent is revived but I have not checked if the duration of this invincibility varies between versions.
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i'm watching a video of dc with spanish subtitles and the phrase for saluting weiss ('sieger weiss' for the japanese version; 'hail weiss' in engligh) is translated to 'larga vida a weiss' (long live weiss). now i'm wondering what other languages did with it :sadpanda:

edit; i went a looked up the french version, which is 'ave, weiss' which might be using the latin 'ave' (as in 'ave maria') which means 'hail weiss'?

so that's four down :sadpanda:
 
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The PAL release of Dirge of Cerberus supports English, French, Italian, Spanish and German languages. This is confirmed in the game manual and by changing the language setting on my PS2. The available languages on my PS2 are the ones mentioned above as well as Dutch and Portuguese, but Dirge of Cerberus does not support these two languages. Selecting Dutch or Portuguese will lead to the game being played in English.

French: Ave, Weiss = Hail Weiss
Spanish: Larga vida a Weiss = Long live Weiss
German: Für Weiss = For Weiss
Italian: Hail Weiss = Hail Weiss


FRENCH:

ALgXlA4.png


06QPUnW.png




ITALIAN:

WWk8WuU.png


GGBhxjc.png




SPANISH:

7kz6A1T.png


dYxGUwq.png




GERMAN:

KODho9Q.png


GMTnZBq.png

As a bonus, here are the start-up screens for the French, Italian, Spanish and German settings respectively.

FRENCH:
YGAv33I.png


ITALIAN:
3PH8L9W.png


SPANISH:
UdHZJCQ.png


GERMAN:
D2lAPVe.png
 
Even though I haven't visited the Extra Missions in a long time, I'm in the mood to list some of the improvements/additions I'd make to this feature if DC was to be re-released. Some old items in here, some new.

- In the "Mission Objective" screen that pops up after you select a mission but before the mission actually starts, make it possible to enter the menu and change Vincent's starting equipment. Indicate this with a text on the Mission Objective screen that says you can access the menu. EDIT: The intention is then that once you leave the menu, any changes to Vincent's equipment becomes the new default starting equipment.

The problem with current releases is that the only way to adjust which equipment setup Vincent starts with is by going back and defeating Omega Weiss with a different setup so that it might be saved. Changing equipment while playing an Extra Mission can take precious seconds away if you are attempting to clear the mission faster and faster. Replaying a mission also becomes more fun when you don't have to change your equipment setup EVERY TIME you restart the mission. Some missions will still require you to change equipment multiple times mid-way, so the challenge of progressing through the stage and simultaneously changing equipment is not completely removed even with immediate access to the menu during the "Mission Objective" screen.


- In the indicated best clear time for an Extra Mission, include decimal seconds. The current menu only shows your completion time in minutes and seconds. Definitely include the decimal for 1/10th of a second, probably include the decimal for 1/100th of a second. At the off-chance you want to compare your results with that of a friend, concluding who has the actual best result becomes impossible if you land a clear time at the same second.


- When all Extra Missions have been cleared at least once, have an indicator at the bottom that calculates your "Total Accumulated Clear Time", which is all your best clear times all added together into hours, minutes and seconds (at least). The point here is that when you manage to narrow down the Total Accumulated Clear Time below a certain number of hours (I have not tried to calculate what would be reasonable here) you will get a new, flashier Congratulations screen. If a reward at "X Total Accumulated Clear Time" is obvious to the player it will add incentive for them to replay and master even the missions they don't feel confident in playing.


- Make the Congratulations screen, and the suggested "Super Congratulations" screen, available to view repeatedly via the Extra Missions menu.


- Instead of getting ONLY the Congratulations screen from completing all the Extra Missions, have some actual, tangible completion reward for it! The current situation where all you get is a one-time Congratulations screen is laughably bad. The reward could be literally anything, as anything is an improvement over nothing. Perhaps make it possible for Vincent to equip some of the head gear from the PlayOnline mode? Imagine the hilarity of Vincent with a chocobo hat. Perhaps make it possible to play through the main game with Turk Vincent. Even if these bonuses were to be purely cosmetic they would be neat completion rewards.


- Add markers to the Extra Mission menu showing whether or not a capsule has been destroyed in any given mission. You could include greyed out capsules which become colored once the capsule is destroyed. This will also make it easy to spot which missions don't have capsules and which ones have two capsules instead of just the one. There is nothing fun in confusing the player about which missions have zero, one or two capsules. With the current design players also run the risk of forgetting which missions they have destroyed a capsule in.
 
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Believe it or not, today Chapter 8-2 actually made me happy. Discoveries have been made.

- Research suggests that it is impossible to defeat Rosso with just one shot. This has been tested in both JORG and the US version. No matter how high your kill chain (yes, even with a maximum kill chain of 99) this is the greatest amount of damage you can cause to Rosso with your first shot:

HBY7CjJ.png


With my equipment in JORG, the damage caused to Rosso capped at around the 15 kill chain mark.
Not sure whether I should write "kill chain" with a space or write "killchain" like the ranking screen in the actual game :wacky:

I have mastered the art of the killchain, especially so in JORG, and I know now how to begin every battle against Rosso so that I might cause this amount of devastating damage to her. Thanks to this the Rosso boss battle is way less annoying and now you have a fair shot at defeating her without sustaining too much damage yourself.

In other words, you can't skip the cutscene that acts as a transition to Rosso's "Bloodburst" form. The cutscene where she says "Do you know why they call me the "Crimson", darling? Let me show you!"

'Tis almost a pity. Would have been badass to defeat Rosso in one shot and then have her react in greater shock at Vincent's power.


- As far as numbers displayed above Rosso when she is damaged, the numbering makes little to no sense. Turned out that the numbered damage cap wasn't 9999. The highest I got was 29997. Yet when I defeated enemies, when I had a kill chain of 99, the numbered damage did not exceed 9999.

Wildly different numbers can be displayed above Rosso's head even when the same amount of energy is depleted from her life bar. I speculate this has to do with the Cerberus firing three bullets per shot. If the same "actual" damage is performed on an enemy no matter if one, two, or three bullets hit an enemy, but displayed HP damage is calculated by adding each bullet to the equation, that could potentially explain this oddity. It wouldn't surprise me if the game is so oddly programmed that "actual damage received" and "displayed HP damage" are two separate entities.

EDIT: Another reason I have this speculation about the Cerberus bullets is because of the displayed HP damage "19998" and "29997" consistently appearing in my playtests. That is 9999x2 and 9999x3 respectively. Each bullet then in a typical three-bullet shot from Cerberus is able to cause 9999 in displayed damage.


I mean, there were many moments when a critical hit displayed lower numbers than a "normal" hit. Dirge of Cerberus has a habit of being confusing when it comes to displaying HP damage, as was also seen with the griffon which turned out to show cumulative damage (a "single" hit that grows stronger) instead of being additive (each hit being counted separately and adding together into massive damage, had this been the case).

tl;dr Dirge of Cerberus programmers
What-Were-they-Thinking-700x395.png


- To my surprise, if you have a 99 kill chain (100 targets defeated in a row) and then proceed to destroy another target, the kill chain is reset to zero (1 defeated target). The damage Vincent can perform is also reset due to this. This has been confirmed to apply to both JORG and NTSC-US. Not yet tested in PAL and INT.

Showing the ascent to a 99 kill chain and then showing how that chain is reset by destroying another target.



For whatever reason, deflecting the missiles is way easier in JORG than in post-JORG.


- Chapter 8-2 in JORG (post-JORG versions not yet sufficiently tested) has presented a trolling "bug". >___> Imagine that you are able to assist the three WRO members on your way to the first G Report. Victory, yay! Then when you move to the upper floor and face the second Black Widow, you hear explosions in the distance... Then you check your status menu and see that one or more of the three WRO members have suddenly died!

Somehow the environment on the upper floor, around where the Black Widow spawns, interacts with the drum cans and box crates on the lower floor where the WRO members are. To prevent this from killing your comrades you have to either destroy the drum cans pre-emptively or move the WRO soldiers out of the way. Because I don't want to decrease my accuracy rate by shooting at multiple drum cans (which would require AT LEAST six shots total) I used Vincent to push the members to a space beyond the range of any exploding drum can. This process can take 40-60 seconds, but if you want to ensure their survival in JORG then you are forced to either do this or decrease your accuracy rate by pre-emptively destroying drum cans.

I haven't encountered this issue in the post-JORG releases but more research must be performed before I can speak with confidence.
 
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Finally passed Chapter 8-2 (Normal Mode, JORG) with acceptable results, after maaaany retries and experiments.

gl6JhW3.png


How far was I from all S rankings? One more Limit Break use and six more Critical Hits! :D That's not bad at all.

What are the requirements for all S rankings in Chapter 8-2, according to the DC Complete Guide?

Targets Destroyed - 70 or more
Accuracy Rate - 70% or more
Damage Sustained - 7999 or less
Critical Hits - 50 or more
Killchains - 70 or more
Items used - 6 or fewer
Limit Break Used - 6 times or more
Mako Collected - 90% or more
Times KO'd - 0
Time Expired - Less than 28 minutes and 20 seconds

Wow, I got EXACTLY the right number of targets destroyed. Like in Chapter 6, it is important to not let the WRO soldiers steal any of your kills.

You have to be extremely conscious of your playstyle or else your Target Accuracy will end up way too low. The room with the mines that deactivate EM barriers and allow you to get loot? Skip it! Shooting the mines with bullets will decrease your accuracy rank. You won't have magic to spare to destroy the mines with. Also be conscious not to destroy drum cans and boxes with the use of bullets. Preferably don't use the gatling gun midway through the stage as that will almost definitely lower your accuracy rate waaaay too much! Defeat the enemy wave via other means.


EXP research:

- To my surprise, I discovered that each hit inflicted on Rosso will up your EXP. If you complete the boss battle with mostly critical hits it will net more EXP than if you had mostly scored normal hits. The difference could be quite staggering. I started out in the boss battle with 605 EXP and the final EXP when Rosso died ranged between 1105 and 1543 (lower and higher scores may be possible). With 1 EXP = 10 gil, the difference in performance above can net you over 4000 more or less gil if you convert the EXP to gil after the boss battle is over!

Not having paid much attention to how EXP works in DC, I look forward to learning more on how to optimize EXP accumulation.



Timer research:

- The game timer continues even during the Stage Ranking screen. I disagree with this design choice, as I think the player should get all the time they want to look at their stage results. Instead, if for example you are doing a speedrun, you will have to click past the Stage Rankings screen so fast that you might not even catch what your final completion time was. In the case of an All S Rankings run, I want all the time in the world to gloat at my results but DC says NOPE! :monster:

- I was confounded in an earlier post that the timer appeared to be still during cutscenes at the start of Chapter 3. What actually happens is that when you start playing via the Checkpoints Menu, the timer will be frozen until the actual gameplay starts. The checkpoint remembers what the game clock was at when your progress was saved at this point, and so that is where the game clock will be at whether or not you skip those initial cutscenes.


Related to the checkpoints... Although I haven't confirmed this for all the checkpoints, you can restore Vincent's HP by leaving the game and then entering that spot via the Checkpoints Menu. Even if you had very low HP at the start of the checkpoint when you left the game, now that you've re-accessed the game via the Checkpoints Menu Vincent's HP will be restored. This can be a cheap way to avoid using restorative items. ;)
 
With all the cutscenes recorded in JORG with subtitles, via gameplay this time, here is my current library of Dirge of Cerberus movie files (all include subtitles) :

- JORG Cutscenes via Gameplay
- JORG Event Viewer
- JINT Event Viewer
- PlayOnline cutscenes unlocked in INT, Japanese subtitles with English settings (which makes only the Speaker Names turn English, the rest remains in Japanese)
- INT, various scene variations from Ch1 and Ch8.
- Miscellaneous

In total this library contains 26 folders, 846 files (about 230 of these are snapshots of non-cutscene script on the Shera) and a total of 114 GB of data so far. :monster: I got backups on my MiniStation device in case my computer were to fry or whatever. In case anybody wants any specific videos or snapshots sent to them, let me know.

As a little treat, here are both Japanese variations of Cait Sith's line on the Shera. If you get discovered too many times in the Cait Sith segment in Chapter 5, Cait will refer to #6 instead of #5 in a cutscene on the Shera (Chapter 7).


In the English game Cait Sith will say
"Number 6 ready for action!"
or
"Number 5 is alive!"

If hito or Tres would like to explain any differences in nuance between the Japanese and the English text here, that'd be appreciated of course. =)
 
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Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
ども、6号や

や is an affirmative auxiliary verb (just looked that term up to sound smart) using in the kansai region, and corresponds to だ in standard japanese

ども、5号です

です is just the standard, polite version of だ

(they both use ども, which is a shortened version of どうも used as a casual greeting)

where english might use different words to convey personality or the like ('ready for action!'), in japanese you can just say the same thing but in a different way which in popular media is a common way of getting across something about the character quickly like their age or upbringing or general personality. some stereotypes about people from areas of kansai like osaka are that they're friendly and funny, so i'd assume the comical angle is one they went for with cait sith
 
There's also "Number 7. Nice to meet you." IIRC.
I have never encountered or even heard of this variation before. Do you know anything about how it might be triggered, if it exists?

EDIT: When I get home from work today I'll probably try to do the Cait Sith segment with multiple Game Overs and getting discovered a hundred times, just to see if it is possible to trigger another variation of Cait Sith's line. Thanks for peaking my curiosity, Clement! =)
 
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First trial (JORG) yielded the expected "Number 6" line. In the Cait Sith segment I got seven Game Overs, got discovered dozens of times and in the final run where I survived I was discovered 10 out of 13 times. Although my memory claims that I have done previous runs where I was discovered 13 out of 13 times (and as a result got the #6 line), I could be wrong. At some point, perhaps this time in an English version instead, I will do another fail-run but where I make sure to get discovered those 13/13 times. I do not actually know if getting Game Overs has any impact on the line spoken by Cait Sith on the Shera.
 
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