In my opinion, this game is the best in the franchise and my personal favorite. Everything about it just clicks to form an experience which reminds me of why I love video games. This is like the video games of video games. If I have to start somewhere, DMC5 takes the gameplay to the next damn level and ramps it up to the 1000th degree, it is utterly insane. I've not seen a game that works this smooth and feels this polished. You play with 4 different characters to have their own unique styles with each of them catering to different people. You love bombastic, raw annihilation? Play as Nero. You prefer the more skilled, and wide range of combat forms? Play as Dante, or the more simple yet powerful style of precision being Vergil. The game gives you so many options to choose from and I find it beautiful how the game lets you pull of so many cool tricks and moves. Every form of gameplay blends into one another, enemies are balanced to let you express your artistic combat on them without being overly easy. Its combat continues to evolve as you playthrough until you reach the end where you just start to play the game again because of how fun the gameplay loop is. The game feels incredibly smooth and refined with how the characters move and there is never a dull moment. The bosses have also been improved for the best in comparison to DMC4, 1, and to some extent even DMC3. Seeing how you adapt to different bosses is incredible. Vergil is easily one of my favorite boss fights and while you can certainly argue for other bosses in different games being more complex, what I love about Vergil is how amazingly he fits into the gameplay of DMC5. He is the perfect place to go all out with every skill you've learned and practiced and the moment when you pull of the most visually pleasing and stylish combo is when everything about the game just clicks. Not to mention how the game continuously pushes you to play more and more stylishly, through its dynamic music, stylish score, and one of the best gameplay combat it offers you. Son of Sparda is my favorite difficulty as I think Dante must Die is a tad too difficult for me but its still really fun. Other ideas I want to mention is the games incredible blend of realism and the more video game style from previous titles making it one of the most visually appealing games of all time. The environment is also beautifully detailed and while the game is incredibly linear its for the better as you spend more time indulging in its feverishly stylish gameplay. My complaints with previous DMC games is how it mixed annoying platforming with puzzles in a non-linear game which didn't work out for me as the combat of DMC games didn't mesh entirely well with puzzles and platforming plus the balancing and ridiculous enemy/boss issues from earlier games which prevented a higher score. I'm all in love with the gothic style of DMC1, and 3 but DMC5 is the perfect culmination of the franchise for me. You can argue for DMC3 being the best in the series but personally DMC5 takes the spot easily, it's a love letter to not only the franchise but also gaming in general which I will continue to adore for many, many years to come. I can talk so much more about the intricacies of certain bosses or comment about the story or talk about how epic the soundtrack is but for now this is it. If you read this review till the end then I hope you're time was not wasted. Thank u :)