this, this is where the beloved status of this franchise finally started to make sense to me
the at last realised combat system with its many playstyles has to be the first topic of discussion here, since it is just such an exhilarating system now, with so many approaches to combat with its multiple weapons, guns, style switching and other cool shit I'm probably not even aware of yet
the level design is mostly great, with it's challenging enemies and tough bosses (fighting Vergil is one of the coolest fucking things I've ever experienced in a videogame), with the only annoying parts being the occasional meh puzzle sections
there's an actual story now, with characters that have, well, character and stuff, it's fun and campy and very enjoyable all the way through
even the music got a serious upgrade, with some legitimately great battle tracks here and there
with DMC3 I can finally see why people like these games so much, I'll round this up to a 10/10 even though it's not quite perfect and has some flaws and is closer to a 9.5/10 really but I'm feeling generous since I had to go through the disasters that are 1 and 2 for this
man am I gonna be coming back to this a lot