Finished on DMD. This game is exactly what I remember: it's the pure juice of the arcade experience not only in its mechanical structure but in its stylistic core of the game feel, themes, cutscenes, soundtrack, and last but not least: this fucking weird mix between the reverse survival horror experience & castlevania based on an onimusha glitch and a lot of divine comedy. At the same time that it looks like "wrong game, you thought it was leon, but it's me, dante!", it smells like an old cigarette next to an arcade machine.

About DMD:

Despite some bullshit spikes (all bossfights except for Phantom), this mode is pretty much what I expected: it's the litmus test of what the interactions of the combat system can offer. Every move is part of a big flowchart, even the grenade launcher shots, holy water, air raid and inferno that I know everyone loves to abuse in this game.

Replaying this made me think that what differentiates Kamiya from Itsuno is that Kamiya tries to extract everything from the first level of his game, and make the entire game based on this single frame, while Itsuno tries to do the same thing based on the game's mechanics per se. Kamiya's take resulted in DMC1, one of the richest games in terms of mechanical interactions in its combat system, and one of the most admirable enemy design we have ever seen.

I think this is my favorite DMC for now, but I also have to replay the others.