This is a speedrun on New Game with regular Dante on Normal difficulty, done in 19 segments, ending with a time of 41:33.

-Some Techniques

--Stinger Traveling
Spamming Stinger 2 over and over will be faster than simply running without using any DT. While this method does not use any DT, Dante is locked into auto aim so this cannot be done when enemies are nearby.

--Devil Trigger Speed
The fastest mode of travel is with Vortex 2. The disadvantages is that it drains the Devil Trigger gauge very quickly. Before, I thought that Vortex also is locked into auto aim, but when I was at Mission 15, I've discovered that holding R2 before starting Vortex will disable auto aim, allowing me to Vortex in places with enemies without needing to manipulate enemy positions.

Running in Devil Trigger with Alastor equipped will make Dante run faster. This is faster than Stinger traveling, but slower than Vortexing. This does not use as much DT as Vortexing for times where I need the extra bit of DT and that Dante does not need to run straight, as Stinger and Vortex are limited to mostly straight traveling.

--Conserving Devil Trigger Gauge
It costs one rune of DT to turn off Devil Trigger, i.e., you use DT when you manually turn off DT. To avoid paying this cost, I usually either keep Devil Trigger on until it either runs out, or go into a new room with Devil Trigger on.

--Item Usage
With Holy Waters costing only 700 red orbs on Normal mode(3900 and 4100 in Hard and Dante Must Die!, respectively) it would be a waste not to use any. However, since some of the best techniques in Normal mode do so much damage, it can be possible that using a Holy Water is in fact slower. For example, it is actually slower to defeat Phantom with three Holy Waters than to use critical hits. Instead, I try to use Holy Waters for when I run out of DT or to minimize any delays in attacking.

-Mission Notes

--Mission 1 - 2:43
The game starts off with a huge luck factor, as the Marionettes in the basement can vary, so it is important that I don't get any Bloody Maris in the basement and as many green and light blue Maris as possible. The huge amount of jumping over walking is that I thought jumping is faster than walking, but after testing, I've found that while you do move faster horizontally, any saved time is lost because Dante has to land.

--Mission 2 - 2:06
I wanted to defeat the Sin Scissors such that I end with full DT. I go for a Critical Hit on the first Sin, then I hit the remaining two with a downward slash.

--Mission 3 - 1:45
Grabbing the 50 orb cache a tiny bit slower than simply Stingering through the level, but I did it to get the Special Bonus. In Normal mode, the damage in the water doesn't count against you, so I don't need to do the Secret Mission in order to get the SB.

I use Stingers to deal with the Sargassoes. I need to make sure that I use traveling Stingers, as they do more damage in order to kill each one in two hits instead of three.

--Mission 4 - 1:55
The first Shadow of the game is weaker than all other Shadows, requiring one DT Stinger to the core, instead of two. The Nelo Angelo fight is practically perfect.

--Mission 5 - 0:52
The mission starts by going into the menu to show you that you have the Melancholy Soul. Normally you press the cancel button to leave the menu, but it's a bit faster to use the Start button instead.

Grabbing the 100 orb cache in this mission meets the orb requirement for me to get the Special Bonus.

I wanted to gain as much DT back in this mission as possible. The Shadow's death gives one rune of DT, and I use a downward slash in very last room to damage the Sins, restoring a bit more DT.

--Mission 6 - 1:13
Using Holy Water on the Beezlebubs saves the trouble of fighting them. The jump instead of using a Stinger is that if I immediately Stinger after the Holy Water, I would end up Stingering into the dying body. The deaths of the Beezlebubs restore my DT enough to activate it in the next room.

In the last room, I use a Holy Water against the Death Scissor. When using a Holy Water on a Death Scissor, it gives the DT refill immediately.

--Mission 7 - 1:13
It is actually possible to grab the Sin Scythes' orbs and still make it to the door before the cutscene, but I didn't do it here. It really didn't make a difference in this run.

--Mission 8 - 1:14
This is worst mission that made it through, with two very noticeable mistakes, first being that one of my attacks on Phantom didn't do damage, and the second where I messed up walking at the end. Strangely enough, even when I got a perfect Phantom fight, I still got the exact same time.

Picking up and equipping the grenadegun costs around 11 seconds. The grenadegun is the fastest way to restore DT, and it's good for most of the enemies in the game, so I can easily make up for the time lost.

--Mission 9 - 2:24
Here, the grenadegun really helps save time in the forest. When fighting the enemies, it is not very important to kill them fast, as I have to wait for the next enemies to spawn anyways. So the only ones that really matter to kill fast are the last enemies.

--Mission 10 - 1:19
It is important for me to push the Marionette back close to the gate so the orb of light will go into the gate and not another enemy. That is why I do not DT Stinger into the Marionette and since traveling stingers are stronger than point blank stingers, I also needed to make sure that I do weaker stingers so I don't kill it too early.

It takes a little bit of time to grab the orb cache, but I grabbed it to get an S rank in this mission in order to buy a Holy Water for Mission 11.

--Mission 11 - 1:34
Throughout this run, bosses have the tendency to simply remain with barely any health remaining. Nelo Angelo 2 is the first one, requiring me to shoot a grenade and start a slash canceling combo just to the point where he dies to a Holy Water. Surprisingly enough though, after timing, it turns out that using a Holy Water doesn't save that much time at all, maybe a second or so.

--Mission 12 - 1:34
Killing the enemies at the start allows me to Stinger to the boat.

Without enough orbs to afford Meteor 2, Meteor Level 1 with a Holy Water will leave Griffon 2 with a tiny bit of health left. I time a grenade before charging Meteor so that I do enough damage so that the Holy Water will kill Griffon.

--Mission 13 - 0:43
The needlegun shoots faster by spamming the button, instead of simply holding the button.

--Mission 14 - 1:21
Nothing to say.

--Mission 15 - 2:21
In the very first room, if you jump straight up, you can Vortex in the direction you want, instead of towards the enemies. Alternatively, holding R2 disables autoaim for Vortex.

For the room with the Sin Scythes, I used Vortex entirely since I can disable autoaim. Normally Vortexing uses more DT per distance, but since the floor is moving backwards, Vortexing actually uses the same amount of DT as DT running in this case.

The goal for the Griffon 3 fight is to bring him down from the air as fast as possible, but at the same time, I need to have enough DT to activate it as soon as he lands. This is why I double taunt and a perfectly timed grenade brings him down and restores the third rune of DT. I need to shoot a DT'd grenade as soon as he lands and get a double hit with Meteor 2 to bring his health low enough to die to a Holy Water.

--Mission 16 - 2:57
In the beginning, I do a Stinger jump, but it is impossible to Stinger jump to the door directly.

For the Nightmare fight, I need to keep Nightmare's top core blue to set up for the next fight, so I use Ifrit, but for the bottom core, I don't have Rolling Blaze to parry the triple stab, so I use Alastor and Stinger instead. The best damage dealing combo with Alastor is a Grenade Stinger combo.

In the last room, I use a series of Stinger jumps to cross the bridge without using Vortex in order to save DT.

--Mission 17 - 2:48
There is a chair that gets in the way of Stingering, so breaking the chair lets me use Stinger in the beginning of Mission 19.

--Mission 18 - 2:24
I aimed to finish Nightmare 2 in one round which requires the use of a Holy Water. A Holy Water will instantly break the core, so I had to keep the top core blue in the first fight as the Holy Water will instantly turn it green.

--Mission 19 - 1:55
With an excess of red orbs, I use it to buy two Holy Waters to deal with the Nobodies. Small Nobodies die quicker than large Nobodies. The first Holy Water will break the mask of any large Nobody, so I had to hope that the Nobodies decide not to put one on after the first Holy Water but before the second Holy Water is used.

--Mission 20 - 0:54
Trish's cutscene needs to be activated before finishing Nightmare 3, and the damage you can do before the cutscene is capped, meaning I can't damage it just before the cutscene activates and then use a Holy Water to finish it. That doesn't work.

I wanted to activate Trish's cutscene within one round, so I needed the top core to be green and even then, I needed to damage it as much as possible, requiring the grenades and kick in the very beginning. Using Magma Drive here will do twice as much damage than if I were to use a regular charged punch.

Nightmare 3's entire health bar is continuous, so if the killing blow before the final core does any extra damage, it goes straight to the final core, so I can just use a Holy Water to finish the fight without dealing with the final core at all.

--Mission 21 - 2:13
This mission contains three mandatory Nobody fights. It is important to break their mask, which is why I use Air Raid on them, as the large Nobodies take longer to explode than small Nobodies. Small Nobodies are pathetic compared to when they are larger as they can barely put up a fight, which allows me to perform the grenade stinger combo without any worry of counterattacks, which large Nobodies will most likely do.

--Mission 22 - 1:15
I need to start off with all eight runes of DT so I cannot use any DT at all, requiring me to Stinger to Mundus.

For the Mundus 2, the strategy is go into the lava and constantly be attacking Mundus. Eight runes of DT is the exact amount I need to kill Mundus, but that is even pushing it, so the downward slash in the beginning, while not necessary, really helps. While the lava damages Dante, it actually cannot kill Dante, so I am at a risk of dying from other attacks, but not the lava.

--Mission 23 - 2:39
After timing how long it takes to use a Holy Water, I actually realized that using it against the two Nobodies is actually slower than switching to Ifrit and using Inferno.

I decided to use a Holy Water in the very beginning of the final room to kill the Blades. In this case, I actually cannot reach the door before the unlocking cutscene, so I decided to use a Stinger to gain some distance during the cutscene.

If you take each mission time and add it up, the total is 41:22, but I believe the in game timer keeps track of the total number of frames, so the in game timer shows 41:33.

-Possible Improvements that didn't make it
A properly used single Holy Water can probably make a time less than 1:40 possible in Mission 4, if you use it after 8 slashes to Nelo, which will immediately end the battle, skipping both of his teleporting and taunting cutscenes. It was not done due to a red orb cost of 700 to buy the Holy Water and another 400 orbs from getting an A rank over S. So the total of 1100 red orbs lost makes it very difficult, so I decided not to redo Mission 4 for this.

Clearly Mission 8 can be improved. If I ever run this again in the future, Missions 7 and 8 will be in separate segments.

Using the Holy Water in Mission 11 saved a lot less time than I thought it would. Compared to a perfect Nelo Angelo 2 fight, using a Holy Water only saves one second. Here, it would save a bit more as I run the risk of running out of DT, so it takes more time to defeat Nelo Angelo 2. A better use of Holy Water is in Mission 10 against the Kyklops, which can save around 10 seconds.

Since I discovered that you can disable autoaim when Vortexing in Mission 15, I didn't implement it in earlier missions. For example, traveling from the well to Nelo Angelo 2's room in Mission 11 is probably faster than DT running, and I probably could have pulled off a vortex somewhere in Mission 12 also.

Against Nelo Angelo 3, it takes 6 seconds from the start of the fight to the first hit. I used a Holy Water in this fight, and if I used it in the beginning instead of the end, it will cause Nelo to do something else, and possibly make it able to hit him earlier.

For all of the Nightmare fights, it will definitely save time to buy Rolling Blaze. I originally thought it was only going to be used for parrying the triple stab, which only will be done once, so I thought its usage will be limited. But then with Nightmare 1 and 2, I would always end up with attacks that will not kill Nightmare, but instead be alive with literally no visible life bar, so I had to waste a bit of time just for an extra attack. And with Rolling Blaze, I no longer need to kick into the core for Nightmare 3. So with Rolling Blaze, jumping into the core does the tiny bit of damage that I need, saving a bit of time. The cost of 3450 orbs is very high, though, so I am not sure if I can implement it.

In Mission 18, when you pick up the Philosopher's Egg, you get an approximate two second cutscene of looking at the egg. You can skip this if you grab it right as the water runs out, but the window is very small, so I didn't get it in this run.

With all of the possible improvements and possibly further optimization, I'm pretty sure that sub 41 is possible, but sub 40 is pretty far off. The issue is not trying to get a few hundred more red orbs to get to use more Holy Waters, as that doesn't save that much time. The issue is the need for more runes of DT to travel by it more often. I am not sure of the total amount that can be saved, but I wouldn't be surprised if up to 30 seconds can be saved with more DT to use, especially in the earlier missions.

-History
I've been planning this run for a few years, but I never had the recording equipment needed until late 2012.

I recorded Missions 1-7 In December 2012. I did Missions 3 and 4 as one segment and 5 to 7 as one segment. Then due to real life traveling and without access to my recording equipment, I had to put this run on hiatus until June 2013. Due to a few noticeable mistakes in the Mission 3-4 segment, I decided to redo it and split Missions 3 and 4 into separate segments. I ended up saving a total of 15 seconds from redoing Missions 3-7. I progressed to finishing Mission 14, when more real life traveling interrupted my progress. I finished the rest in August 2013, but not without some trouble. In particular, once I figured out the strategy for Mission 19, I knew exactly how the rest of the run will look like. Due to the amount of items used, I knew that I wouldn't like it, so I was considering not finishing the run, even though the rest isn't very hard. But still, I ended up making progress of one mission per day, but I didn't feel like making sure there were other faster methods, so Mission 21 has suffered from that. Sorry for that. Another setback was before I could record Mission 23 properly, I lost my save, so I could not submit my run because I didn't have the very last mission. Fortunately though, I have two memory cards, so I can just simply start from Mission 15 instead of the beginning. On August 8th 2013, this run was completed with a time of 41:33. To clarify, I'm not disappointed with the time, but rather the means that I needed to do get get such a time.

-Thanks
I honestly need to thank the DMC community, Joch, Rob, Ryan, Sternn, Patient Vlakorados, and everyone else who I didn't mention, for discovering pretty much almost all of the techniques used to get through Dante Must Die! difficulty, which when applied to Normal mode, becomes extremely destructive. I used many of these techniques, sometimes modified though.

I also have to give thanks to a Japanese speedrunner named ZENO for having a DMC speedrun. While I could not follow his speedrun exactly due to his ingame timer abuse, I learned quite a few techniques from watching his videos. In particular, his constant Vortexing even when enemies are around eventually made me figure out that you can disable auto lockon when Vortexing.

Thanks to SDA, the main staff and volunteers for obvious reasons. But in particular, thanks to the verifier who commented on my single segment Super Dante run for saying that I could have selected "'yes' a little faster." That really showed me how much the standards have changed and how much higher quality that SDA demands now.

-Future
With this run, I'm done with Normal mode. Both this run and my Super Dante run(especially since more controlled vortexing and more amount of vortexing in general can be done now) can be improved but I'm not planning to do so. However, if anyone is willing to take it up to the challenge to improve this run, I have all of the saves still available in .psv format(and I can convert them to other formats) for those who can copy saves and don't want to redo every single mission. If I ever do redo this, I probably would reuse Missions 1-3 and start at Mission 4. If there is one run that I want to do in Devil May Cry, it would be a segmented any% DMD! run. I might also be interested in doing a single segment 100% DMD! run, although I can not guarantee anything.

This is my second from-scratch 100% run of Devil May Cry in Dante Must Die! mode, purchasing every skill and Purple/Blue orb, getting every Blue Orb fragment, completing every Secret Mission, and getting S-Ranks or Special Bonuses on every mission.

This one is a major improvement from my earlier run, knocking off 19:31 from the previous run using 15 segments instead of 23. More stingering, DTed running, improved strategies, and the introduction of item usage made for a faster time.

This run was made possible by a collaboration of some of the finest minds the DMC community Joch, Ryan86, Patient Vlakorados, Devil May Asian, Rob, and justaNewbie. The story began when DMA did some experimenting in late 2004 to determine if it was possible to S-Rank Mission 1 in DMD! mode with a fresh Dante. He was able to meet the time and orb limits, taking one hit. It then escalated to a challenge to the other DMC players (mainly Joch, DMA, Ryan86, and myself) to achieve a Special Bonus in Mission 1. I wanted to record this, and so I did. Once completing Mission 1, the way was open for getting SBs on the other missions. After a month or so, several players completed their SB runs of DMD! mode.

There is an audio commentary for this run available in the .mkv files, which aren't listed here due to a technical issue server-side. I couldn't include them in the .mp4 files due to Quicktime being unable to play the audio streams separately. Most of the techniques and strategies used in this run are explained in the commentary, as well as some observations and fireside monologues.

The HQ and IQ versions of this run have been specially filtered with MEncoder to create progressive 59.94fps video from its interlaced NTSC source. A powerful CPU will be required to play these back.

The Matroska files are available for download here.

There are a number of techniques used in this run few outside of the GameFAQs forums have seen.

1) Slash-cancelling
This technique was discovered by Patient Vlakorados, specifically for fighting Nelo Angelo, but has applications outside of this fight. Whenever Dante slashes with his sword, there is some lag time between that slash, and when he puts the sword back, allowing him to move again. This animation can be sped up by wiggling the stick back and forth quickly after slashing. Dante can cancel on his 1st, 2nd, and 4th slash.

Against Nelo Angelo, this allows you to get up to 18 consecutive hits on him before he blocks (or teleports, if attacked from behind). 2-slash SCs work well DTed or not against Nelo's front or back. 4-slash SCs only work against Nelo's front while DTed, but are the easiest to maintain. If Nelo counterattacks, he must be allowed to finish his attack before you start up again, otherwise he'll block after a couple slashes. This is only necessary in the first fight, as Ifrit is much more effective in later fights.

SC'ing also works wonders against the first wave of Maris in the Mission 1 basement fight and the Frosts in Mission 7, keeping them both stunned and unable to start an Icy Inferno.

2) Phantom Critical Hit
Props again to Patient Vlakorados for this one. Phantom has a point where if a downslash connects, it will do massive damage to him, and cause him to stagger. We call this a CH on Phantom. If timed correctly, this will allow you to keep Phantom stuck in a loop where he is unable to get away from you. You can kill Phantom in under 20 seconds if each one connects. This will allow the player to complete Mission 3 with the Secret Mission in under 3 minutes (the time limit for M3).

3) Griffon Meteor2 Double-Hit
If timed and placed correctly, and charged Meteor2 can hit Griffon TWICE, dealing double damage. This is possible because Griffon has 2 hit areas (head and legs). I have not yet heard of a double-hit against Griffon 1, but it is certainly possible against Griffons 2 and 3. The double-hit against Griffon 2 is nigh-impossible to get reliably, as the window for the hit is VERY small. Getting a double-hit at the start of Griffon 3 almost ends the first part right there.

4) Mundus Dragon Double-Hit
With a full 10 runes, it is possible to make the DT Dragon hit Munus TWICE, doing insane damage. This can be done at two points. One: When Dante is point-black with Mundus, unleash the Dragon when he is about to summon the gunspheres (wait until his right hand is staightened out), or from below on the second run (won't work in the first run).

Enjoy :)

This is a from-scratch any% run of Devil May Cry in Dante Must Die! mode, going for all S-Ranks ("King of Hell").

This run was a nice change of pace from my previous runs, doing the whole game in one shot, but not focusing on getting everything. Getting S-Ranks is pretty easy, since all you really have to do is not die. The better your ranks early on, the easier the game gets (relatively).

I had to use LDK (a costume change for Dante with DT available on Mission 1) for reasons of sanity. There were too many elements to Mission 1 to warrant doing it over and over and over and over again to get a Special Bonus, only to blow it on Mission 2 or so. LDK makes Mission 1 soooo much easier. Using LDK takes about 1 minute off the regular SB clear time I get for Mission 1. Once you get Alastor, everything is the same as regular Dante.

I don't even want to think about how many tries it took to get this right. Even then, I still blew a few things here and there:

• Mission 5: One of the Shadows exposes its core in midair, making it impossible to attack. That nearly got me killed, let alone costing me the SB.
• Mission 9: A Blade dings me, forcing me to take an extra 20 seconds or so to make sure I make the orb requirement.
• Mission 11: I screw up my Ifrit combo against Nelo and get slashed trying to make up for it, losing the SB.
• Mission 15: I cancel DT in the middle of my Inferno string against Griffon. I get whacked twice for this.
• Mission 16: I get poked by a core ray at the beginning, screwing up my combos and costing me the SB.
• Mission 18: I was unable to block Nightmare's boomerang attack, and floundered about trying to keep the top core green.
• Mission 20: An ice slug sneaks up on me, and screws up my attack on the Final Core.
• Mission 21: A Nobody cracks my skull.
• Mission 22: I got overconfident near the end of Mundus 2 and was nearly wasted.

In spite of this, I'm particularly happy with the way Mission 17 turned out.

Again, I have done an audio commentary for this run. It was surprisingly easy to keep talking for an hour and a half. Unfortunately, I could only do it for the HQ version, as the encoder that was available to me at the time couldn't handle lower bitrates properly. The commentary is in an .mkv file available here. I couldn't put it in the .mp4 file, since the Quicktime player cannot differentiate audio streams, unlike every other media player out there.

There is no IQ version this time around, as having an .mp4 larger than 2GB breaks the A/V stream.

Again, the HQ version has been specially filtered to recreate the original 59.94fps. You'll need some hefty hardware to play it back at full speed.

I intend to combine what I learned in this run with my earlier one in hopes of making a single-segment 100% run of DMD! mode. We shall see...

This is a single segment speedrun on New Game with the Legendary Dark Knight on Dante Must Die! difficulty collecting 100% of items, ending with a time of 1:29:43. This is an insanely difficult category to even finish, because it does not require just completing the game while collecting items, but also requiring enough Special Bonuses and S ranks in every mission and as a result, a run can end even right at the very end.

The total number of red orbs to buy everything is 69465. This number includes all purchaseables and all doors that require a red orb payment. Meeting this is not trivial, for it is extremely difficult. I aimed to get Special Bonuses(SB) on Missions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 21. In this run, I did not get a SB on Mission 14, but I made it up with Special Bonuses in 15 and 17. For those two missions, in an ideal run, no damage will be taken and thus a Special Bonus will be given, as it costs no time to meet the orb requirement. But as these two missions are boss missions, taking no damage is very hard.

The choice of the HD version was for one reason, Mission 3. The timer on the HD version does not consider loading times, giving an extra 15 seconds on Mission 3, making it so much easier to get the SB on Mission 3. Thus I decided to use it because I can feasily get the SB on Mission 3 in a single segment, which is really needed.

The choice of the PS3 HD over the 360 HD version was for one reason, the audio. The 360 version has terrible distortion that I can never seem to remove no matter how low I make the audio gain is. Perhaps it is hardcoded into the game that way, which would be terrible, for actually the 360 version is slightly faster because it loads things like grabbing items a bit faster than the PS3 version.

--Ranking Notes
The 100% definition of this game means getting an S rank on every mission. There are three categories that determines the rank of each mission: Time, Red Orbs, and Damage. Each category gives a maximum of 5 points, but if you miss the requirement, it only gives 3 or less points. Getting a full 15 points gets a Special Bonus, an additional 2000 orbs at the end. Getting 10-14 gives an S rank. Thus it is important for me to watch the damage I take, and collect red orbs when necessary to make up for damage.

Doing Secret Missions also gives extra points; some give 2 points, some only give 1. I take advantage of this in order to use items and still be able to get a Special Bonus in Missions 11 and 15. In Mission 17, it allows me to take a hit from an enemy and still get a Special Bonus, although a hit from a boss will no longer give enough points.

Doing Secret Missions and getting Special Bonuses also does one more thing, gives ranking allowances to following missions. As a result, it is possible to get a Special Bonus in missions 4, 7, 16. However, this cannot be done in a single segment, for you need to reset the game in order to get a ranking allowance. This is why in MIssion 4, I was able to meet the orb requirement, take no damage, but still not get a Special Bonus for I needed a ranking allowance to make up for the time requirement. The Secret Missions do not give enough ranking points alone.

--Item Usage
With Holy Waters costing a whopping 4100 red orbs, I cannot buy any with red orbs, so I instead collect the ones that are lying around. With Holy Waters also doing 1/3 damage to bosses, it is not worth it on such, and I use them on large amount of enemies. Holy Waters also do 1/3 damage to Kyklops compared to Normal mode, but I still use a Holy Water on them, for Kyklops are a mini-boss like enemy, and so it has the boss trait of taking 1/3 damage from every other attack as well.

-Mission Notes

--Mission 1 -
Mission 1 is known to me as the mission of very hard jumps. All of the jumps are not trivial, and it is very easy to overshoot or just miss. I need to get the Special Bonus to prepare for Mission 3, so I need to meet the orb requirement, and not take a hit. Both are not trivial. Meeting the orb requirement of 400 orbs is not easy, while also doing fast. Not taking damage is also difficult due to fighting 5 Bloody Maris.

It is due to this mission that I use the Legendary Dark Knight costume, for I need a Special Bonus in this mission. However, with regular Dante, it is extremely difficult for all Dante has is Force Edge, which does around 3/4 of the damage of the Yamato and has no Devil Trigger. Sometimes, it is even impossible to get a SB with regular Dante because the basement can spawn too many Bloody Maris for Dante to handle. Unlike LDK, the Marionettes in the basement will DT and dealing with DT'd Bloody Maris is just slow.

--Mission 2 -
Here, I also need a Special Bonus for Mission 3. The issue is there is a random factor, getting wither Sin Scythes or Blades in the courtyard. Sin Scythes are much easier, but Blades can give a lot more orbs, in fact even enough to buy a second purple orb instead of just one. I fight the enemies in the courtyard to meet the orb requirement. In this run I got Sin Scythes, which are really easy to deal with.

--Mission 3 -
This mission is the reason why I played on the HD version, although it is possible to not get a Special Bonus in this mission and still get enough orbs to buy everything. Getting a perfect fight with Phantom is extremely difficult.

While my fight with Phantom may seemed fast, it would have been too slow on the PS2 version to meet the time requirement. Everything must go perfect on this mission on the PS2 version, so I decided to use the HD version just for this mission.

--Mission 4 -
Since I do the 3 Secret Missions, I do not need to fight hallway Phantom, for I can still make the orb requirement collecting orbs elsewhere.

After fighting the Death Scissors, I stay near where it dies and do not run to the door because that might make the DT refill come much later.

Although I do not take a hit, I do not get a Special Bonus, because I needed to reset the game to get a ranking allowance. That would have made up for the time requirement, but since I decided not to reset, getting a Special Bonus is impossible.

--Mission 5 -
There was a ledge that Dante ended up grabbing that I did not intend to happen.

--Mission 6 -
This is another Special Bonus mission, and an extremely hard one, for the bat Plasma would often hit me off screen, so I use Vortexes to avoid damage.

At the end, I also do not immediately run towards grabbing the item, because that makes the DT refill from the Death Scissors come much later.

--Mission 7 -
This mission involves taking constant damage, which counts against ranking, and doing Secret Mission 5 would make up for the damage. However, doing that would be crazy, so I simply take a S rank. This also means I avoid fighting hallway Phantom, which saves time.

--Intermission
I do Secret Mission 5. Unfortunately, I die here, but it costs no time, because the intermission doesn't count towards the ingame timer. I still don't like it though because it looks terrible.

--Mission 8 -
Meeting the orb requirement simply means I pick up the orbs lying around.

There are two ways of fighting Phantom, either getting his health to zero, or having him drop on the glass 5 times. The glass method does not provide a DT refill. I also find it inconsistant, because sometimes Phantom just simply refuses to jump. As a result, I tend to prefer to attack him. Combining the two methods is possible, but I also don't like to do that because the glass tends to make the camera angles terrible.

Here is a link to a perfect fight, which is what I always try to do in the beginning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoRdFrh8SA

--Mission 9 -
For some reason, I am always cautious against Blades, but I still ended up taking a hit anyways.

--Mission 10 -
The first area was a bit rough, because the light didn't go into the Fetish that I wanted. It eventually worked out but a bit of time was lost.

Similarly to the last mission, I also take a hit against the Blades, and I was just so cautiously slow against them.

In third area, it is possible to kill one Shadow and have it close enough to the gate that the light goes to the gate instead of the second Shadow. That didn't happen here.

--Mission 11 -
Starting from here, I spend a bit of time to get the Special Bonus. This includes killing the Death Scythe and picking up the hidden orbs. I save time by using a Holy Water in the well, allowing me to kill of the Blades quickly, a necessity for doing so also spawns a blue orb fragment. To make up for the Holy Water, I do the Secret Mission, which allows me to get the Special Bonus in this mission.

--Mission 12 -
In order to pick up the blue orb fragment in this mission, I need to do a Stinger jump, but it is a bit precise. I spend some time to make sure that I don't screw it.

Griffon 2 is different on the HD version, because he always spends a high HP energy wing in the beginning instead of a low HP one. However, sending a Meteor in the beginning makes him summon a weak HP energy wing instead. The issue though is that it also makes Griffon refuse to land, and just fly around instead. I found that if I destroy the wings with Rolling Blaze instead of letting it take me into the air and using the handguns to destroy it will make Griffon land faster.

--Mission 13 -
I spend a bit of time to get the 100 orbs and the blue orb fragment to get enough orbs to get a Special Bonus.

--Intermission
The secret mission can only be done during the intermission

--Mission 14 -
Normally, I try to get a Special Bonus here, but I ended up taking a hit from a Sin Scissors. This ended up saving time because I no longer have to orb farm. However, I need to make up for the orbs lost from not getting a Special Bonus, but since I was so close to the next missions, I decided to continue.

--Mission 15 -
I go backwards to get to the Secret Mission. I use two Holy Waters to end the Secret Mission quickly, and the extra ranking points from the Secret Mission makes up for the holy waters, allowing me to get a Special Bonus if I don't take damage, which usually doens't happen because of Griffon 3. However, in this run, I ended up taking no damage so I get the Special Bonus, which makes up for not getting one in the previous mission. Getting a Special Bonus in this mission costs very little time, it just that getting through damageless is not easy.

--Mission 16 -
A Special Bonus is impossible in a single segment while also doing the Secret Missions, so taking damage here really isn't that bad.

The Nightmare fight was far from perfect for I messed up quite a lot.

--Mission 17 -
There are two ways of doing the Secret Mission. THe first is to kill the Death Scythe, and then Vortex to grab the blue orb fragment. The other is to use Air Raid to grab the blue orb fragment. It is important that I have DT for the following fight with the Frosts, so I decided to use Air Raid, as it ends up killing the Death Scythe later, and thus I get a DT refill at the very end. With the Vortex method, I would need to fight the Fetishes halfway up the stairs to restore my DT.

I do take a hit against a Frost, but the Secret Mission makes up for that, so I ended up getting a Special Bonus.

--Mission 18 -
THe underwater Sin Scissors were a bit uncooperative, so I ended up having to spend a bit of extra time killing them, but I didn't lost that much time. Since I am not going for the Special Bonus, it's okay if I take some damage.

The Nightmare fight was overall pretty good, and almost perfect except for that I ran out of DT charging one of my Meteors. I had to make up for this by using 3 Meteors in the final barrage against the core instead of 2.

--Mission 19 -
I collect the Nobodies' red orbs to meet the orb requirement.

--Mission 20 -
Unlike Normal Mode, conserving DT is much more important, so I try to limit the Vortexing. I skip the Frosts, because most likely I would take a hit so it's not worth the bit of time fighting them.

Skipping the underworld is also possible but extremely risky. If a single hit is taken, the run is over for it would be a guaranteed A rank.

I also miss the first round at the core, and I lost over half of hte poentital damage I could have done because the last three hits that didn't make it are also the most damaging hits.

THe underworld was also messy. The Kick-13 missed the last Sargasso, so it was a pain to kill. Then the fight with underworld Nelo is also relatively quick, but I wanted to do an Inferno at the end but ended up kicking. I got a bit reckless trying to get the finishing hit, so I took enough damage to be in danger of dying. Switching to the handguns is also slower than keeping with the grenadegun, but again, I was at a risk of dying, so I used the safer handguns, and I really had to focus on the final core to make sure I don't die. As a result of the above, this mission was rather slow.

--Mission 21 -
I collect the red orbs from the Nobodies to get the Special Bonus.

In order to get to the Bangle of Time quickly, I take advantage of autoaim from Vortexing. However, I failed my first attempt because I ended up running into the terrain and didn't gain enough height. The second attempt worked, but it used all of my DT.

Later, I had to go through the tentacles without any DT. The easiest way with DT is to Vortex through them, but without it, I used slash cancelling instead.

I also normally equip the shotgun in this mission, except I also sometimes would go overtime just because of that, so I do it in the next mission.

--Mission 22 -
This was a pretty good mission overall, and can only be improved greatly by having a better Mundus AI. There was actually a run where I got through Mundus damageless and got a Special Bonus in this mission, but that is just too reliant on Mundus's AI.

--Mission 23 -
I grab a hidden 100 orbs, because it would be really sad if I get all the way to the end, take a hit, and not get enough orbs to get a S rank.

The final results screen shows much more orbs than gotten in this run. This is because the HD version keeps track of all orbs collected in all runs.

-Note
Getting under 1:29 is possible, maybe even 1:28. If I ever have more time, I might eventually try again for a better run, although there is a lot of luck involved as well as skill.