Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening

We have a return to form in the dmc franchise, although capcom must have taken the "it's too easy" criticism of the previous game to heart as they crank up the difficulty to 11 even on the easier modes, that's to say nothing of its original release where they scaled up each difficulty setting and made the Dante must die setting virtually impossible to complete.

Suffice to say, this game isn't for the faint hearted as enemies can really catch you off guard way too often, forcing you to use the easy mode and then come back to the earlier stages on higher difficulty settings with powerups you acquire later I the game in order to stand a chance against the campaign. It does mean you'll be doing quite a bit of grinding which does kill some of the replay value, however it's immensely satisfying once you've beaten the game on a higher setting given how much you've overcome by this point. A major return to the first instalment is the locations which are once again cramped to allow high combos even if the Ai has also learned to use these combos themselves to crush you in your campaign. Also returning from the first game is Dante’s personality, this is largely due to it being a prequel to that game which is the perfect explanation for why he's no longer the stoic loser he became in the second game. That personality trait is nowhere to be found as he, our villains and his sidekick lady all have the 00s emo persona I lovingly refer to as the Seto Kaiba effect. This is where someone is so emo yet paradoxically badass in that 00s way that the Yu-gi-oh character as well as Dante in the original game popularised that has since been ruined by bad fanfiction writers who took the wrong lessons from these characters (commonly known as modern Disney writers.) The weapons are at their best in this entry as they start out as each of the bosses Dante fights before choosing to ally themselves with him upon their respective defeats, this of course leads to witty banter between him and them before and after their fights. I also enjoy the story here much better than its predecessors, although that's more for the character interactions as in terms of what happens, it's pretty basic.

It's a challenging game, however if you can grind through it, there's plenty to enjoy from its top-notch combat to the characters to even the bonus stages which are just as challenging here as they were before.

I fucking sucked at this game. My god. But it was fun. I enjoy Dante as this goofy protagonist, and the combat was just really enjoyable. I think I need to give this a second go around in order to build up my thoughts and opinions on this game. Maybe I'll suck less this time. Who knows?

O design mais “aberto” desse jogo é seu grande triunfo.

Poder alternar entre tantos estilos de combate e armas (brancas ou de fogo) de forma tão instantânea traz uma liberdade que o torna menos frustrante que o primeiro da série, ainda que seja consideravelmente mais desafiador.

A história é surpreendentemente bem amarrada e a maioria dos bosses são muito memoráveis.

Hack 'n' Slash em 3ª pessoa não fica muito melhor que isso.

I recently played this as I decided to beat every Devil May Cry (I had just beaten the first one).

The good:
Gameplay itself is incredible, it hasn't aged a single day.

Bloody Palace is great for just killing demons and forgetting about everything else for 3 hours. This is both fun and rewarding, you also get a feeling of improvement after slaying demons non-stop.

Graphics are good and soundtrack is okay but it's not my cup of tea except for a couple of tracks.

Story and characters are good/charismatic, I truly love the over-the-top action cutscenes.

The bad:
My only problem with this game is that some enemies and boss fights are very boring and not fun (e.g. Leviathan and Gigapede).

The level design can get really bad at times too, there are puzzles that are very vaguely explained and the game has a lot of backtracking in some missions, I had to watch walkthroughs on Youtube after frustratingly not finding what to do.

I really don't get why some people complain about the linearity of games like DMC5 and the Bayonettas. I don't know about you but I'm playing DMC for the fights when it comes to gameplay, not doing ridiculous puzzles and backtracking. Having a linear level design makes these kind of games way more replayable and fun.

In conclusion:
DMC5 > DMC3 > DMC > DMC4 > DmC >>>>>> DMC2

Very impressive improvement coming off of both the good but sort of basic DMC1 and extremely disappointing DMC2. Easily the best of the original ps2 games, and still very fun to play even 15 years after the fact. The only real flaw I'd say is how much the second half of the game is just reused environments from the first half jumbled and rearranged together or with minor changes but that is a minor nitpick for what is otherwise a contender for the best hack and slash game around, possibly just on soundtrack alone.

DMC 3 is really the best of the franchise and I don't think you'd find many to argue against that opinion. 1 was too rough and lacked variety, 2 was just a trainwreck, and 4 lacked originality and had the terrible backtracking. 3 on the other hand was a huge improvement, you had more combos, a bigger variety of weapons and play styles, featured bigger levels, more bosses, and actually had well written dialog and characters. 3 was where the franchise really found its stride, and it is one of the best hack n slash games. The only real complaints I've heard is the game is too difficult, which was fixed in the Director's Cut. DMC 3 brings back memories for me too, I remember when I used to be into baseball, I tried out for my High School's baseball team, but during tryouts I got a terrible cold and I remember one day going to practice really early at like 6 in the morning, meaning I had to wake up around 5 AM and I was sick as hell and just felt horrible, and I remember having DMC 3 and playing that when I got home from high school that day and during that night. And I remember saying screw it and just ditched the tryouts and just finished played this game that night and slept in and that was the end of my baseball obsession, after that I completely quit baseball and stopped seeing the trainers and didn't even bother to play for my local park district either. DMC 3 is one of the best gaming experiences due to its style, atmosphere, and variety.

What I really enjoyed about 3 was how the game had a serious story while throwing in Dante's sarcastic humor, it felt so natural, and this is my favorite version of Dante. The game follows the same formula of being broken into missions and at the end of each mission you get ranked. It also has the typical find the item and then use that item to complete the mission, but the enemies in this game were more varied and I felt the bonus missions in this were also pretty fun challenges. The boss fights in this were easily the best in the series, while they had good variety, challenge, and required strategy.

Now DMC 3 is great, but not perfect. It does have some balance issues. There are some parts of the game that aren't bad, but then the game will have a huge spike in difficulty in certain areas and just throw tons of enemies at you. The game doesn't have a huge variety of areas, and many missions do feel very similar in area design and backgrounds. There are some really short missions that do feel a bit pointless, and of course the boss gauntlet at the end is a bit annoying, even if you don't have to refight every boss and can choose how to do it. The story is mostly good but does suffer from some cliches and I feel like Virgil and Lady were a tad bit underdeveloped. But the flaws of this game are very small compared to the first 2 games, and even the difficulty hardly bothered me since the game was more than fair and offered plenty of different weapons and styles to learn.

DMC 3 is just everything that makes DMC a good series and everything from the design, the weapons, the story, the dialog and humor, the action and combat system, the boss fights, and the variety. The flaws of this game are very minimal. I replayed this game for the first time in years just this last October during my Halloween games marathon I did that month and it still was as fun and engaging as it was when I played it years before. It may be the best hack n slash game ever and its still a lot of fun to play today, the game is the perfect length and difficulty, along with fun as hell combat and boss fights.