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Because NTSC-J version is essentially same as Special Edition minus the limited JC. It's also not very accessible to the community as the game is exclusive to PS2 Console
Style Switcher is a mod that fixes performance, visual and gameplay related problems with the Steam 2006 port of the game. It allows player to change the resolution to native 1080p, play the game at a somewhat steady 60fps with music and have PS4 pad work perfectly. As the name suggests, it also has the option of switching styles on the fly like in DMC4. Obviously, this is not used in runs. The final version also allows the game to load any room in the game and makes practicing easier.
In some cases 2.4.3. is used because the newest version eliminates the cutscene movement. It's important to note that the 2.4.3. version of SS has an extra Air Hike/Skystar/Trick Up (Dante's Trickster move) in Devil Trigger which doesn't exist in the base game. This is likely an oversight in the mod. For this, replace the “2” with “1”:
DEVIL_AIR_HIKE=2 DEVIL_AIR_TRICK=2 DEVIL_SKY_STAR=2
It works out of the box and has all the lighting/blur/fog effects and additional taunt sounds, but has slower loads, lacks cutscene movement and despawns. Some camera angles behave differently as well. It also has 1 extra frame of input delay, even compared to PS3/XBOX 360 HDC. Quick text skipping with gun is with Style button (pad only). Some bosses spawn on different spots.
The 2006 port has significantly faster loads on windowed mode than fullscreen, whereas HDC has no difference between the modes. The acid in M8 in HDC does more dmg than in 2006 . Bought Gold Orbs do not work in the 2006 port. DG can be used infinitely by keeping lock-on held (StyleSwitcher fixes it). The unlock all cheat (R1+R2 + L1+L2 + dpad up-left + left stick down-right) still works in HDC but doesn't allow you to save or load a file (2006 port does). The savefiles between versions are not interchangeable.
Because from a fresh New Game, you cannot choose easy until you die three times. This might seem arbitrary but if you cannot do the run on a fresh start, is it really New Game? There's also no point in forcing yourself to die thrice in a normal run with a New Game+ save. This is why easy and normal are different categories.
Because it allows you to parry any attack in the game for style and guard build-up, which can be used as Just Release/Royal Release and cancel the recovery animations of almost any of Dante's moves. Rolling before guarding allows for easy timing on moves like A&R's jumps, Nevan's spinning and Vergil's Beowulf combos. Guard cancelling Rebellion in missions 1-3 is necessary for speed and efficiency and the same for shotgun.
Properly timing a Release as an enemy is attacking you results in the Gold Release, which does the most dmg. If you mistime it (silver release), it won't do the full dmg and you can either end up with the regular or the Gold release animation, but you will take chip dmg. The Release is used to skip the second phase in Beowulf, Vergil 2 and Lady.
The dmg dealt with Royalguard increases the more guard you have built up. The style is leveled up after beating M5 A&R and M18 final boss (A&R or Beowulf). Some parries that look perfect are not if the glass breaking effect is shown (ie. Geryon carriage spin).
DT basically makes you invincible at the start up, regenerates HP, gives you hyper armor for some amount of hits or time, makes your movement and attacks faster and deal more dmg. It is used to run and Stinger cancel faster or save yourself from dying.
Devil Trigger Explosion (DTE) is used by holding down DT for about 3 seconds to start charging your built up gauge (7 stocks max) and when released it will create an AoE that severely damages nearby enemies. Managing DT for movement and DTE is essential in the run.
It basically OHKO's any lessers demons (except Queen Arachne) in a room and does immense dmg to bosses. You get 3 for free which are optimally used for M10 Arachne, M16 Fallens & Living Statue Room, M18 Chess pieces and 4 more are bought to waste Arkham. You can cancel the use animation by jumping but it actually loses time at least in Arkham.
There's a zip glitch one in M4 and M9 after the 1st Arachne room. You have to Gold Release an arrow shot by the Enigma on a suitable spot to cross over to the other side, saving about 14s optimally. The 2nd phase of the Arkham fight has a prompt about Vergil, and you can sometimes skip this, though no one knows how.
If you die on for example A&R, the next time you fight them you can knock away their weapons with one release instead of two. Similarly Doppelganger's blinds take less hits to open, Geryon actually behaves worse etc.
That is due to the way the 2006 port handles the music files. It adds roughly 720 frozen frames to the run which is 12 seconds. You can disable the music via Style Switcher DisableBGMEngine=1 or delete the files to avoid it.
Because Japanese produces less text and text boxes than other languages and scrolls faster as well. However this also changes the accept/decline buttons (from X to O and △ to X). The difference between JP and EN is about 2.09s.
Because runners disabled the BGMEngine to remove the stutters that happen in certain rooms and improve the performance of the game. Most of them use hies' DMC3 Tools to play the music (doesn't have all the proper tracks but it's better than nothing.)