Yeah, it's like we should not need SwordMaster to access a crummy aerial rave technique. That and the weakening of the styles in general just makes Dante feel like such an odd retrofit.
The other thought I had was simply getting rid of Sword and Gun and making Guard and Trickster way way better.
Or just improve sword to include unique stuff that makes the switch seem worthwhile. If some of Nero's attacks were like the kind of thing available to Dante it would be better
I guess I'm just not a fan of giving Dante more options in 4 but making those individual options far less interesting than their DMC3 counterparts with less effect than similar techniques given to Nero. Feels like the wrong direction to go.
The reason why they nerfed Dante in DMC4 is because he had access to all styles at once. So each style was nerfed.
Whereas in DMC3, they knew players had access to only one style at a time. So they made each style really powerful to hold it's own. Gunslinger in DMC3 fucking rocks. In DMC4 though - it's situational depending on the enemy. Fireworks and Rainstorm melt the Faust and Mephisto Cloaks, but only are serviceable and okay outside of that. Trickster no longer has its triple ground dash, and the parry window for Royal Guard is harder.
Ultimately, making Dante truly powerful in DMC4 if you were good at switching between all 5 styles, and all 6 weapons at once.
That's basically 11 character states that a player has to keep track with DMC4 Dante.
You solve this in the following ways:
1) Let the player equip however many or however little weapons at once. Be it 2 guns and 2 melee or 3 guns and 3 melee. They player should be able to choose.
2) Bake Trickster into the base control scheme. Move Devil Trigger to the touchpad or some shit. L3+R3 if need be. This way L1 can be Trickster.
3) Swordmaster should default to O.
4) Gunslinger mostly uses rapid fire and hold charge attacks. And situation attacks like wild stomp in DMC3 and crazy ride.
5) Royal Guard - not exactly sure. Maybe performing a last second perfectly time trickster evade causes Dante to do a quick parry into dash. And then the Royal Charge boosts dante's sword and gun attack damage by like 10% for the next 10 seconds.
Bottom line is that there is way to put all the styles onto one control scheme without losing too much from each style. Trickster and Swordmaster can retain all functionality, Gunslinger and Royal Guard may lose some but having it all one easily accessible control scheme makes up for that.
