Dante has many styles in his arsenal. But by far, his Royalguard fits in as one of the most dangerous. You can practically cheese bosses with it. Sure, it isn’t as versatile as newer creative ways to dodge attacks. Not as intuitive as giving you new melee attacks. Not as explosive as giving your guns that certain spice. But it is the most punishing.
To put it bluntly, the Royalguard allows you to tank attacks and dish them back many times as powerful. They say the best offense is a good defense.
Now Royalguard isn’t that difficult on paper. If you press and hold circle, then Dante will minimize any incoming damage and absorb it. His meter will build, and you can dish it back out anytime you’d like. But if you time it right, just 1/10th of a second before an enemy attacks then you’ll be able to dish out a royal block, which completely negates damage and charges the gauge more than usual. Do this again before you dish out all your pent up block meter just before and enemy attacks, and then Dante will do a royal release which does more significant damage.
Now take note, if you choose to hold the style button your devil trigger gauge will drop. If you keep taking in hits, your devil trigger gauge will drop down to nil, and Dante’s defense will break. So always keep a watchful eye on it. One of the things you have to balance is whether or not you’d prefer Dante’s extremely useful healing in his devil form, or blocking more incoming attacks.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, is if you time your block perfectly just before an enemy hits, then Dante’s devil trigger will not be consumed. It’s also a very fast way of getting SSS rank. And a very good way to quickly deal with bosses. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s also a quick way to the game over screen.
Depending on what level your Royalguard is, the more energy you can store in your block meter. The more energy you’ve stored, the stronger your attacks are.
Take some time to practice with this awesome style. You’ll see just how great it really is.