GAMEPLAY TIPS

FLOW OF THE GAME

DFCI is a game heavily focused on resource management. Understanding the game flow can help you make decisions that ultimately give you the upper hand.

Round 1

Let's talk blast, resource management and the overall flow of the game. A lot of the flow of the game and how things can play out will always revolve around what resources you have. Being mindful of your resources plays an important role in your play so let's cover the important bits. The start of round 1 the goal is to get your power blast whether it be combo'd into or in neutral. The more you play out the round without using it the more you're hurting yourself in multiple ways.

You're neglecting meter gain, it's the perfect way to build immediate meter that can be used for your neutral/pressure game which I will detail below.
You gain 10% blast whenever you use an EX and 20% for a ranbu, by having your blast active and sitting you're losing out on blast gain no your EX moves, over the course of the meter you want this to build up.
2.5 With this in mind you don't want to use EX moves while in power up blast, if you're sitting on 5 bars its ok to cash out a little but generally using meter will stop your meter gain in power up blast halting your advantage.

In a perfect world, the round works out this way.

You get your power up blast, combo'd into preferred
You bait out my opponent's blast and punish him for it.
You’re actively moving forward toward your opponent and applying pressure as well as gaining meter due to meter increase from moving forward.

Power blast is over and you’re sitting on 3-5 bars of meter with more to gain. Play neutral for a bit and when you get a hit always go into an EX for KD because that's when your pressure begins.
End the round without having to use trump, if it comes to it to guarantee a kill then by all means however the ideal would mean you have it for round 2 for additional pressure on your opponent.

Round 2

If you were the winning player your goal is to build resources for a possible Round 3 as well as get your opponent to waste as much of their resources as they can. If you were able to win into Round 2 with both of your trumps you now have a trump card that you can apply early to apply pressure to your opponent with. You want to make your opponent work to win the round, while you shouldn’t be too stressed if you lose the round you don’t want to end the round burning all of your resources recklessly and going into Round 3 significantly weaker than you should be.

Round 3

If you successfully went into this round with 2 trumps and full bars your first goal is simply to get into trump in some way, you want to immediately put pressure on your opponent and end the match quickly before they can build resources to counter attack you.

The goal is to win Round 1, put yourself in a favorable position for a Round 3 and then go wild.

BASIC GAMEPLAN | PLAY AROUND YOUR BLAST GAUGE

While DFCI doesn't offer too much in terms of combo video material the game really excels in strategy, neutral and proper resource management. Your goal at the start of round is to ensure you have the resources to start your momentum once you get a solid hit in. Once you do it's a matter of setting your opponent up into a hard knockdown situation and starting your okizeme, whether it be through the use of an assist or your own character.

A basic gameplan like this is not only strong and effective, but you're cycling through your meter to keep your opponent blocking, eventually leading back to the recovery of your blast gauge, allowing for another Power-Up Blast.

For a more in-depth guide on blast usage it can be found here.

OPENING UP THE OPPONENT | MIXUP

Coming from other French Bread titles like Melty Blood or Under Night In-Birth you may find DFCI more limiting in comparison. The game does not offer multiple means to open your opponent up with character-specific overhead attacks or special moves. With the exception of some characters you’re mostly limited to 4AB, the universal overhead attack, 2A for low attacks, and grabs to open your opponent up. You’re playing to get the first hit and then to put your opponent in a situation where they have to make that guess.

With this in mind, the game is slower and more neutral based. Your focus is to outplay your opponent by spacing them out better by using your movement options to catch them making mistakes. The game doesn’t speed up until a player activates their Trump Card which will be detailed later.

OTG DAMAGE

You’ll notice in games after a player puts the opponent in a hard knockdown state they will run up and continue to attack at its corpse, this is OTG damage in DFC. Moves have varying hard knockdown times attached to it in which you can run up and do an OTG string on it for additional damage. Basic OTG strings look like

2AAA
2A 5B 2C

This, of course, can vary from character to character but once you start getting used to the idea of OTG damage you can start expanding on your OTG strings more and more

DEALING WITH REVERSAL IMPACT SKILLS

As a 2 button reversal that has guard point from frames 1-8 It can be frustrating to deal with, however there are answers to it.

Just Block/Bait it

This seems a little too obvious but if you notice your opponent is a little trigger happy with their 5AB and 2AB’s simply run up and block or during a jump in double jump to bait 2AB attempts. They are very unsafe on block and the one way they can save themselves is by wasting their blast via combo blast or by using their trump card.

Grab

If your reactions are fast enough and if you are close enough you can grab them out of their impact skill attempt.

Clash

Something you’ll see players do is react to the clash with an attack of their own. The possible responses to a clash.

- - Trump Cards
  - Combo Blast
  - Ranbu Climax Arts
  - Your own Impact Skill (be wary as they can they cancel into the above against yours)

For a more detailed explanation on clash interactions they can be found here.

MOVEMENT AND FEEL OF THE GAME

Outside of the lack of assault in Under Night, Dengeki shares about the same movement options (or close to) as it. Characters have differing run speeds so some may feel heavier than others. While about a handful of characters have additional movement options such as an airdash variant or other additional air option, generally you’re limited to

Two Jumps (Normal Jump, Super Jump > Double Jump)
Walking Back
Walking Forward
Back dash
Running Forward

For a more detailed breakdown of movement options in the game they can be found here.

DEFENSIVE OPTIONS

While the game does offer what is known as the “impact skills” which are various reversal options using the 5/4/2 AB input, aside from 4AB your other impact skills are generally unsafe so you may ask, “what do I do?” defensively. Generally the options a player will see at their disposal is

Impact Break Series (5AB, 2AB, 4AB)
Reversal Super (63214BC)
Blocking
Trump Card
Escape Blast (Last Resort)

After a knockdown and OTG damage if you have your blast at 100% Power Up Blast can actually work as a reversal option to push the opponent away as well as give you meter and a slight health regen. While good players will space themselves out and punish you it is still very much worth testing on your opponent to see if they have an answer to it or not. Escape Blast is also an option however it is not recommended unless you about to lose the round/match.

Not only this the game offers “pushblock”, by pushing two of your attack buttons while you are in blockstun (preferably BC) you will perform pushblock. Pushblock will always happen however if you are in the health lead your push block will cost roughly 25% of a bar of meter. With this in mind, sometimes it's better to just block and push block from your opponent's attacks to give yourself space.

For a more detailed guide on the applications of reflection guard it can be found here.

ANTI-AIR OPTIONS | CONTESTING JUMP-INS

Unlike most other anime fighters DFCI lacks reliant anti airs. There are characters that have 5A, 5B and 2B attacks that can anti air however, if your character lacks those options your primary options are the use of an assist such as Dokuro’s 5S to snipe them from the air, meet them with an air to air or just block. Alternatively you can always try to run under a player if they continually try to super jump towards you, run under again after high double jumps and catch them on their landing.

For an in depth write up on anti airs, it can be found here.

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