Dirge of Cerberus FFVII:DoC General Discussion

This was my first shooter game and it's actually really awesome! You get to know Vincent more, and he turns out to be the coolest character ever :) The game was too short, you could finish it in 8-15 hours. However the gameplay is different but really great, and the story and graphics are amazing. Loved the story between Lucrecia and Vincent, although very sad :(
 
I loved the game mainly cause I got to see an older version of yuffie why would I hate anything she played a major part of. I guess since ehr and vincent where secret characters in the original game it makes sense to make a game with both of them with big parts, although I would prefer yuffie be the main not vincent. Anyway character wise, I would say Weiss,shelke,shalua,rosso really impressed me the most just about all of them are almost better than half of the original ff7 characters. Storyline was actually kind of weak didnt really care to much for it. I hated how it as based off a shooter, you can still melee but yeah i didnt like it that much. overall the characters and yuffie is why i liked the game so much and of course seeing the original cast of ff7 come back on the new airship the sherra was awsome too xD
 
The whole 3rd person shooter factor threw me off pretty good but I eventually grew used to it. The story was pretty much revolving around vincent which I think was pretty cool but I felt a little out of touch with the rest of the gang if that makes sense. I did like the graphics considering, and I did like how it tied with CC. Looking at it now it opened up a huge opportunity for a final sequel to bring everything to a close. Hopefully it will be either a great movie like ACC, or a new FFVII game based more on the modern FF play style or a CC playing style. Bring Cloud back! :)
 
After 15 years a major exploit was finally discovered in Dirge of Cerberus; The Zoom Climb/Hover.


The technique involves repeatedly alternating between Zoom and Lower-Weapon/Melee while in midair. If performed after Vincent's first jump the technique can be used to gain height indefinitely, achieving a "Zoom Climb", though it requires fast button mashing. If performed after Vincent's double-jump you may only slow down Vincent's fall, maintaining the same height or falling down slowly, thus being limited to a "Zoom Hover".

Accidentally pressing the Lower-Weapon button one too many times will cause Vincent to melee in midair, removing all potential for upwards momentum. Vincent will fall straight down and no amount of button mashing will slow down his descent.

Speedrunners are currently working this technique into the route and it's expected to save roughly 8-10 minutes, depending on the downsides that come from skipping portions of the game. Up until now Dirge of Cerberus has not had any major glitches in its speedrun but that changes with the advent of Zoom Climb and Zoom Hover.

Zoom is usually assigned to R3 on the PS2 Controller. Doing the alternating button-mashing technique tends to be easier if Zoom is assigned to a different button, like L1 or Triangle.
 
After 15 years a major exploit was finally discovered in Dirge of Cerberus; The Zoom Climb/Hover.


The technique involves repeatedly alternating between Zoom and Lower-Weapon/Melee while in midair. If performed after Vincent's first jump the technique can be used to gain height indefinitely, achieving a "Zoom Climb", though it requires fast button mashing. If performed after Vincent's double-jump you may only slow down Vincent's fall, maintaining the same height or falling down slowly, thus being limited to a "Zoom Hover".

Accidentally pressing the Lower-Weapon button one too many times will cause Vincent to melee in midair, removing all potential for upwards momentum. Vincent will fall straight down and no amount of button mashing will slow down his descent.

Speedrunners are currently working this technique into the route and it's expected to save roughly 8-10 minutes, depending on the downsides that come from skipping portions of the game. Up until now Dirge of Cerberus has not had any major glitches in its speedrun but that changes with the advent of Zoom Climb and Zoom Hover.

Zoom is usually assigned to R3 on the PS2 Controller. Doing the alternating button-mashing technique tends to be easier if Zoom is assigned to a different button, like L1 or Triangle.
Great to see you here again! I know you are the person to go to for DoC secrets and any obscure details from this game.

In addition to aiding speedruns I wonder if this neat trick could lead some people into any out-of-bounds areas.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I wonder if this neat trick could lead some people into any out-of-bounds areas.

Probably the biggest exploration opportunity for players is to load up Extra Mission #44, "Deepground", and zoom climb over this barrier to explore the Deepground lobby in its entirety. The area is associated with lag and can often eat your inputs, making zoom climbing a bit challenging, but with patience many players should be able to get over this barrier. Of course this requires that they have a save file with this mission unlocked.

Maximum height of barrier collision marked in red:
EM44_height-of-barrier.png


The mission takes place in what was the main hub in the online multiplayer, where players would sign up for missions, matches and progress the story. I explored it way back in 2016 when I learned how to moon jump with cheat codes on emulator but now anyone can check out these four sectors of the lobby on console as well. Being void of NPCs and nothing to interact with the main joy is in taking in the visuals of this hidden environment.

The game is very strict about its invisible walls, when/how the collision gets loaded for new areas and it never lets the player fall into a void. So outside of some minor sequence breaks, out-of-bounds exploration is quite limited even with zoom climb at your disposal. For example there is no way to explore the area outside of Shinra Manor with moon jump/zoom-climb alone. For that you'd need to clip through solid walls and currently there is no way to do that without cheat codes.


One example that surprised me though is that you can explore the Chapter 10 Deepground monorail on foot if you skip the cutscene trigger for the auto-scrolling section. In the video I perform a moon jump with cheat codes, but you could avoid the cutscene trigger by simply zoom climbing above the ceiling and then zoom hovering to just beyond the cart.

ch10-2_auto-scroller-trigger.png



ch10-2_zoom-climb-above-ceiling.png


Running at max normal speed it will take you almost 7 minutes to reach the end of the line. But if, like me, you ever wanted to take in the sights of this nightmare architecture (without the auto-scroller carrying you along) then this might be a fun use of the zoom climb technique.
 
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Probably the biggest exploration opportunity for players is to load up Extra Mission #44, "Deepground", and zoom climb over this barrier to explore the Deepground lobby in its entirety. The area is associated with lag and can often eat your inputs, making zoom climbing a bit challenging, but with patience many players should be able to get over this barrier. Of course this requires that they have a save file with this mission unlocked.

Maximum height of barrier collision marked in red:
View attachment 11365

The mission takes place in what was the main hub in the online multiplayer, where players would sign up for missions, matches and progress the story. I explored it way back in 2016 when I learned how to moon jump with cheat codes on emulator but now anyone can check out these four sectors of the lobby on console as well. Being void of NPCs and nothing to interact with the main joy is in taking in the visuals of this hidden environment.

The game is very strict about its invisible walls, when/how the collision gets loaded for new areas and it never lets the player fall into a void. So outside of some minor sequence breaks, out-of-bounds exploration is quite limited even with zoom climb at your disposal. For example there is no way to explore the area outside of Shinra Manor with moon jump/zoom-climb alone. For that you'd need to clip through solid walls and currently there is no way to do that without cheat codes.


One example that surprised me though is that you can explore the Chapter 10 Deepground monorail on foot if you skip the cutscene trigger for the auto-scrolling section. In the video I perform a moon jump with cheat codes, but you could avoid the cutscene trigger by simply zoom climbing above the ceiling and then zoom hovering to just beyond the cart.

View attachment 11366


View attachment 11367

Running at max normal speed it will take you almost 7 minutes to reach the end of the line. But if, like me, you ever wanted to take in the sights of this nightmare architecture (without the auto-scroller carrying you along) then this might be a fun use of the zoom climb technique.
Thanks for the info and helpful screenshots, etc!

The online multiplayer part of the game in general does fascinate me. Not only because it is very difficult for people to access but also the lore found within it.

The Deepground monorail is really interesting. The enclosed tunnel shaft parts are aesthetically like H.R. Giger art (which is fitting with the weird science meets megacorporate themes of Shinra) and at others you have Dickensian-style Victorian architecture with some vaguely neo-classical elements in sculpture (equally fitting, for here we have industrialist visionaries combining science and mythology as they look to the future).

Exploring things like this does interest me. I haven't yet watched all of your videos on your channel or kept up with all of the updates you've made over the years, but I greatly appreciate what you do. I do fully intend to go through it all properly some day.
I don't think I have yet referred to Dirge of Cerberus in any of my mythology manual articles for this site, or really in any other articles on this site, but I know there is a lot of great stuff in the game.

There's a lot more to Dirge of Cerberus than meets the eye of most people who played the game.
 
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