I was so close to thinking this game was great but it fell off harder than anything else I've played during the second half. The ENTIRE second half of the game is just padding. You backtrack through all the game's levels until you reach the starting point, fighting the same bosses along the way. That's it. You don't even get a unique final level. Instead, you have to do a boss gauntlet where you fight each boss for a THIRD time. There is a unique climactic fight before the gauntlet, but the final boss? Once again, it's just a slightly stronger version of a boss you've fought before. What a letdown.

I would have preferred if they just ended the game as the first half concludes. That would have made for a short-but-sweet experience. But the game continues while pretending that it still has some cards left to play, even though as a player you're hyper-aware that it has used up all of its tricks. I know they ran out of budget, but that's no excuse for padding the game out like this. Don't make budgetary issues into the player's problem. Just end the game if you have nothing left to show.

Alright, Devil May Cry. You got me. I'm all in.

And here I was thinking this series wasn't for me because I didn't love Devil May Cry 1. As it turns out this is very much my kind of franchise, I just wasn't able to see it because I started with the wrong game. Devil May Cry 3 is a great prequel - so much so that it does a better job at setting up the origin mythos of this franchise than the original game does. Not only that, but it's a giant improvement over the first game in almost every possible way. So in my opinion DMC 3 makes for a better starting point than DMC 1.

The story of DMC 3 has a simple premise: stop Vergil from opening the portal to the demon world. It's not particularly complex storytelling, but where the story shines is the sibling rivalry between Dante and Vergil. This rival dynamic elevates the story in a significant way. I cared about the events of the story because I knew it was all leading to an epic showdown between these two brothers. It does end up happening in an unexpected way though.

[Skip this next paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled]

Dante and Vergil team up at the end to fight off a twist villain who's seemingly the final boss. This fight feels like conclusion to the story, but right afterward Dante and Vergil have the final confrontation with each other that the whole story was leading up to. I loved this because it took the story in an interesting new direction while also giving a satisfying conclusion to the initial premise. Speaking of satisfying conclusions, I really enjoyed Lady's story as well. She's on a quest to get revenge on her father, but in his final breath her father claims to have been controlled by Vergil. Lady confronts Vergil only to see the grand reveal that her father was still alive and in full control of himself the whole time. Her father becomes the twist villain and seemingly the final boss. When the father is defeated, Lady deals the final strike. I love how this story misdirects you into thinking that these characters won't get satisfying conclusions only to revert to the original course and give the story the resolution it was building toward from the beginning.

[End of Spoilers]

Let's talk about the combat. DMC includes a much larger array of weapons than DMC 1. This gives Dante plenty of creative freedom to handle different situations. During the course of the game I was able to find certain scenarios that favored each weapon I had. With all these weapons Dante's movepool is huge even under normal conditions. However, using the swordmaster style can expand the moveset even further, giving dante new moves for every weapon. I absolutely loved the expessiveness of DMC 3's combat that this giant movepool made possible. I was never bored by the combat or frustrated by losing to hard boss battles because I always felt like I could drastically change up my strategy and find new ways to enjoy the game. And this Switch exclusive version of DMC 3 allows for Style switching during combat, which expands Dante's moveset even further. Just like the weapons I was able to make great use of all the styles as well. All of this adds up to make DMC 3 one of the most fluid action combat systems I've ever seen.

My biggest critique with this game is that the camera isn't great. Don't get me wrong though, it's nowhere near DMC 1 levels of bad. There's still the occasional PS1 Resident Evil style camera in DMC 3 but it's usually reserved for non-combat sections. In DMC 1 the average combat arena would have the camera experimenting with "artistic" angles for every five steps you took, rendering the game extremely frustrating to play. DMC 3 has a free camera... in theory, anyway. It's extremely slow to control and it doesn't even work sometimes. Better to just rely on the auto camera which naturally turns to show the enemy you're fighting. ...Well...in theory. The camera has a mind of its own and frequently doesn't show the action you want to see. Locking on doesn't yield great results either. The camera doesn't snap to lock on targets like you would expect. Oh well. The camera may be bad, but on the bright side it doesn't ruin the game like the camera from DMC 1. We're making progress here.

Devil May Cry 3 is a fantastic game. I loved the whole experience from beginning to end. I am aware of some of the criticisms that DMC 1 fans have with it... But these don't bother me. Dante might not have the same personality he has in DMC 1 but he's a far more interesting and entertaining character here. Also I know there are people who prefer how the ranking system/harder difficulties were handled in DMC 1, but if I were to play that game at a high level then that game's flaws would become even more pronounced. DMC 3 is just a more enjoyable game in every possible way for me, so that would extend to higher difficulties as well.

If you're looking to start the Devil May Cry series then I recommend starting with Devil May Cry 3. It's easily one of the best games I've played all year, if not the best game flat out.