Sup! Whether you're hunting those glorious S-ranks on Revengeance difficulty, or just want to jazz up your fighting style, I’m going to lay down some of the techniques discovered so far that may lend a hand.

As with Bayonetta, Platinum Games’ previous entry in the action genre, the combat system at work in Metal Gear Rising is approachable from a casual perspective, but conceals a greater depth for those who seek it out. MGR isn’t Bayonetta, though. While that game placed itself firmly among titles like DMC, MGR bears more of a resemblance to Ninja Gaiden. The focus is less on flashy combos and weapon switching as it is maintaining effective pressure. The game basically has two mantras:

'Defense through Offense’; and

'Always be attacking'.

At higher difficulties especially, Raiden is made of glass and will dizzy very quickly. You don’t want to get hit often, so abide by these phrases.

With that in mind:

Blade-Mode Cancelling

This is your basic cancel. It can cancel both attack and dodge animations (more on this later), and allows extended attack strings.

Where a combo usually ends and Raiden follows through with the rest of the animation (after it has finished causing damage), the enemy will recover. Tapping LT/2, however, will cancel those further frames and allow Raiden to continue keeping up pressure.

You cannot BMC a parry, unfortunately, but you can BMC into a parry (this isn’t as useful as what’s coming up, though).

It's as simple as that, but bear it in mind, because blade-mode cancelling is fundamental to the next technique.

Dodge-Cancelling

As far as I'm concerned, getting through the game unscathed hinges on this principle. Like BMC, dodge-cancelling will cut short the frames of animation on certain moves (most normal attacks are cancellable, some special moves are; experiment to find out). Remember the mantras? Yeah, this is where they come into play.

Performed by pushing the left stick in the direction of the attacking enemy and pressing X+A (with reference to the 360 controller), this tool is both incredibly powerful and versatile.

Most importantly, you can BMC a DC (in the B!), but only the forward dodge (it has magical properties). What this means in practical terms is that, while performing an attack string, Raiden can cut it short in order to protect himself (or purely to extend the string) by forward dodging. Then, at any point during the forward dodge, tapping LT/2 will also cancel that animation.

This allows Raiden to continually press the opposition, defend himself and dispatch enemies quickly.

I mentioned above that a parry cannot be BMCed... Well, they can be DCed. By dodging in any direction, the lengthy animation after a successful parry can be cut short. Factor in the DC>BMC and you have yet another strong tool at your disposal.

Dodge-Offset

This technique is carried over directly from Bayonetta and allows a dodge to be performed mid-combo, with the combo being completed post-dodge.

Because MGR’s attacks do not correspond to the button pressed, but rather the sequence in which they were pressed (ie. different animations come out depending on the input combination), interrupting a combo mid-way through would cause any animation/move specific to that combo to be lost.

However, by holding the last input and pressing dodge, the following move in the combo sequence will continue to come out after the dodge (assuming you press the input after).

In terms of practical uses, much like the above, it allows constant pressure to be maintained, while protecting yourself from incoming attacks (the difference here being that the combo is preserved).

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So, those are the fundamentals. My list is far from exhaustive, and the applications of those techniques go beyond the basics I’ve outlined above. Hopefully there will be more tech developed and discovered in the near future. I’m already playing around with Raidens Ninja Run>heavy attack as a possible OTG (on-the-groung) attack, but we’ll see what comes of that…

In the meantime, here's a video showcasing some of these techniques.

(Please excuse the absolute dog quality of that last video).

Feel free to discuss the techniques I’ve explained, or any other tips/tricks you feel are useful.

I just beat the very hard mode by attacking and blocking normaly. No need for those fancy dodge-cancel thingy you've explained. I'm way too stupid for those.

@klei: I would think there is a need for these dodge cancels when playing Revengeance mode and going for S-Ranks. As stated in the very first sentence.

Did you S-rank it?

Seriously, a lot of this stuff is just fun to develop/use.

@Klei Beating it and S-Ranking it are two entirely different things.

Thanks, this will prove useful when I go for that S-Rank Achievement. One question though, won't it be difficult to pull off dodge offset if the last attack was a heavy attack? Since you'll need your thumb holding the dodge buttons yet you'll need to be holding the Y/Triangle button too. It was easier to pull off in Bayonetta since the dodge button was a single trigger.

Yeah, I think a bit of finger balletics need to be carried out to perform it, so it's situationally useful....

Depending on which BnB you're opting for, you may want to choose to dodge-cancel instead. HHHLH is a pretty decent link, so it works a treat for that (I'm sure that's the example in the video I'm going to post).

I've heard word of a dodge/parry option select, too. Haven't looked into beyond that, but sounds mighty useful.

@geteveryone: So, where would you suggest practicing some of this stuff? Shame this game doesn't have a training room like DmC did.

Also, I vote to sticky this thread at the top of the Revengence board theres some good information here.

I cut my teeth in the demo (as far as DC>BMC goes). Just lower the difficulty and try it out anywhere with groups of enemies that won't overwhelm you (the 1 gekko, 2 soldiers in the first mission is a good example of this).

Yeah, agreed to the training room. That would be sick. VR1 is kind of like that, but you'd have to constantly restart.

I can't get to the game right now, but if someone could try knocking an enemy down>ninja run>slide it'd be awesome. Really want to know if it lands.

I just finished S-Ranking Sam's boss fight and used the Pincer Blades with dodge offset to make quick work of him.

One thing about the dodge offset is that it doesn't work exactly like Bayonetta. Only predetermined combos starting with the heavy attack will work (light attacks just produce an infinite combo string). Because of that and the button placement, you don't actually need to hold the button you're using in the combo while dodging. Just so long as that attack is in the middle of its animation when you initiate the dodge, that combo will be stored. Again, works really well with the Pincer Blades, makes up for how slow they normally are.

The other info in here has been good too. Blade cancelling was helpful when I needed to get out of an animation with the polearm if the target got out of its reach.

Are the pincers really that good? I can't find a good use for em' myself. I use heavy weapons all the time in other games. The Dabilahro in Ninja Gaiden Black is one of my favorite weapons hands down in that game. I just scratch my head trying to find use of the pincers though.

With dodge offset, they do have their use. One thing about the weapon's attacks is that each attack in its combo can be charged. So say you use the pincer blades, dodge offset, use the blades again, dodge offset, and then hold down the heavy attack button. Raiden will charge up the pincer blade's power (Raiden has different stances for each charge up). Release, and then if you aim it well, you can land three very powerful hits instead of just one. I managed to take off about 20% or so of Sam's health with that move.

So yeah, they are good, but only when you utilize dodge offset with them.