i've always felt a little weird about DMC3, it's considered the fan favourite and i do love it but when i used to think about it it never stood out as much as it should to me, it had the bad luck of being sandwhiched between my two favourites in the series (2 and 4) and is saddled with one of the worst fandoms that i had ever interacted with, but this time i played i really wanted to enjoy it and disregard the baggage i had about it because my first run years ago i did love and i think it deserves that love because this game is really amazing and still one of the best games of its era.

they added a ton to this one in terms of the gameplay, probably the biggest upgrade the series ever got with the style system being added, 6 different playstyles that add a ton to the gameplay, you can select 1 per mission and they add things like the ability to stop time, extra gun or sword attacks, cool new dodge moves, a block or even a doppleganger that follows you and mimicks your attacks, they aren't all equel though, royal guard for example is too hard to use and just not as fun as the others, where sword master is so good and versitile that you almost never want to use anything else, the only ones that come close are gunslinger which does the same for guns, but it's less useful than swordmaster and trickster is good but it's more useful for bosses than anything else, though it and beowulf makes for an amazing combo. it also expands the weapons massively by giving you tons of varied options, it's the one issue i could level at the earlier games, as much as i love 2, it really only had 1 melee weapon and 3 guns per character, even 2 only had the two weapons, but here you get 5 per type and they're super varied, you get the standard sword and melee with rebellion and beowulf which play similarly to how they did in 1 but with more moves and depth like how rebellion has dance macabe which is a huge long combo string or how it can be thrown like a spear, it's swordmaster moves even give you some in air attacks so you can stay up for super long (especially when combined with enemy step and the double jump you can unlock which honestly feels like it should have been a part of your basic moveset), beowulf also has stuff like an uppercut and some kicking moves and all of its attacks can be charged to do a ton more damage, you also have your shotgun and pistols too returning which can have extra attacks with gunslinger like how he can swing around the shotgun like nunchucks or spinning around in the air with the guns, they're such cool moves. you also get more out there stuff like lazer guns (which has a cool charge attack), sniper rifles (that can ricohet), bazookas (which can fire one or a bunch of mini missles out), a guitar scythe that shoots out bats, nunchucks that can shoot out ice on the ground (but they also have other super cool moves like an overhead swing that was like my most used move because of how it looked) and even duel elemental swords, there's a ton to use here and they added so many moves per weapon with the pause combos and swordmaster attacks that even over two playthroughs you'd still not learn everything to do with all the weapons, navan especially has some absurd depth to it. i tended to stick with the duel swords and the nunchucks, the nunchucks focus on long combo strings while staying on the spot and it has that ice attack and overhead like i mentioned and i just love how it looks when you use it, same with the swords but they have the own gimmicks like how you can do a slash move that does like a hundred slashes or how its stinger equivelent just rushes the enemy slashing madly, it even lets you summon ranged fire attacks and a whole fire tornado!though i did also take out beowulf a lot during bosses because its damage is super high and it shreds virgil in his fights. my goto guns were the shotgun and the rocket launcher, the shotgun was just so cool and i love how it instantly downed enemies and it looks so cool when you use it in the air, it pretty much shoots you up like its making you fly, the rocket launcher i just keep because it looks neat and has high damage, but it can also reel enemies in with its grapple which is cool. the focus is much more on depth and style, as much as i do love 2 this does really make it look basic in terms of combat depth, but i do still really like how effortlessly cool it is to look cool in 2, but both approaches work i think, the focus on style here is also encouraged a lot more with things like the combat adjudicators that are spread about that will give you blue orbs if you can do stylish enough combos on them and how the style meter will only go up if you change up the combos, not if you just repeat them.

in addition to the dante campaign you have a virgil one in some ports of the game, it's not so much a fully original campaign like dante's but more a redone version with virgil there, there's a single new cutscene at the start but you don't get an ending and the virgil fights are reskinned so it looks like dante but that's really it. the game doesn't replace all of dante's cutscenes with it instead just skipping them wholley and all of the levels remain the same bar some things like the weapon collectables either not being there, or in the case of the charge shot gun, it's there but even if you do the puzzle the game won't give you it. it's still worth playing though because virgil plays super differently, instead of a wide variety of styles and guns here he only has the one each, his darkslayer style which is basically a better version of trickster that's a little harder to use and he also has his summoned swords that work like a slower ebony and ivory i guess, he can also summon them to surround him using DT if you unlock that, i do like darkslayer once you get used to it but i'm more iffy on the swords because until you level them up they're hard to hit and will usually just get you hit trying to use them, but once you get them upgraded they're fun to use. he also has a whole 3 melee weapons which is super cool, he has his own original weapon, the yamato which has him hit enemies with its hilt and give big damage slashes like how its used in his boss fights, a lot of wild slashes that only take effect when it's in his hilt, it's cool but really hard to use with how the hilt does very little damage, it just feels very limited in what you can do with it, i do love its stinger style move though where it gives a huge dash with a flurry of strikes, looks amazing, his jump attack is also really cool with how he slashes midair and stays afloat, but again, very hard to actually land it. he also has access to two other, more familiar weapons. beowulf is the same one dante would use but here he has a different moveset with it and one that was far more fun to use, it's less focused on its basic combo string and much more on air attacks with both your foreward, which gives you a sonic style homing attack that has him kicking and spinning, and backward attacks, which has him doing like a kick uppercut that looks really cool putting you a little airborne and they're so fun to use and you can even have the back kick go into a divekick and it's my favourite of the combo strings in the game, it's so fun to do and this might be the best weapon in the game other than cerberus, and it might even beat it for me, it's so fun and it made his campaign more fun than dante's a lot of the time, his last weapon is the force edge which just gives him a more limited version of dante's rebellion, it has stinger and his throwing attack and stuff but you don't get dance macabe which was the most fun part of his kit with that to me, so i never found myself using it a ton, just didn't feel interesting compared to the others.

with the tone it's much closer to 1 than to 2, it's still stylish but it's a lot less brooding and serious and while i like that, 2 dante is still my favourite, both in design because he was just better looking there and in tone because i liked the edgier more serious take on him, but in this game he's still great, he's so much fun with the quips and the whacky antics like driving up a tower with a bike or surfing on enemies, there's so much cheesy dumb charm here with him and it's always a treat to see, this is him at his most fun and the cutscenes are all amazingly done, they even sneak in little chapter titles in the background if you pay attention, they feel like the devs had a lot of fun making them and thats the vibe you get from the game as a whole, it feels like a game they really wanted to make. the rest of the cast is solid too, virgil is at his best here which to me doesn't say much since i've always been more of a virgil not-carer but he's fun enough here and he has a ton of presance when you do see him but lady steals the show much more, every scene she's in is so cool, she's probably my favourite character in the series and i love how cool she looks (though her 4 design is even cooler, but the image of her with the bazooka is like, so iconic to DMC for me) and i love how she's able to keep up with the rest of the cast despite just being a a normal person and her whole combat vibe is just the coolest, the cutscene where she takes out like 20 of the basic enemies with her guns is one of the best in the game. her arc with her dad really hits home with me because i have crippling daddy issues and they're handled really well, much better than i ever expected it to, some of her scenes with her dad get me to tears every time, though the brother stuff with dante and nero does also get me emotional, especially the payoffs in the arkham boss fight and the final chapter, it's the most emotional DMC i feel and it has the best story overall with how well done its main arc is and how everyones arc comes together so well, it's themes are so good and it handles them perfectly. its such a shame lady isn't playable here though since she's so cool in every scene shes in and it's one of my few real critisisms with the game, but at least 4SE did her justice there (again we do not want to talk about 5). arkham and the jester are the weak point but even then like, they fit the role super well and i think they can be fun, the line delivery is always some cheesy gold, all the VA's do a good job here, as contravercial as he is i do think reubin langdon is a perfect dante (i'm a little more iffy on his take on date masamune though)

it's absurdly pretty too, later capcom ps2 games all look amazing, super high detailed levels, some of the best on the syetem and this has tons of those, i think it looks its best in the first hour with the urban places like the bar and the club and dante's office, but the tower is so varied and you can really place each bit of it, it feels like a real interconnected area and it's cool, though i do prefer the more adventury environment variety of 2 and 4 again, but this approach closest to 1 is still really neat, especially with things like the resi style item hunts, the variety is also really cool, it has that resi 4 style rollercoaster design to it with almost each level having its own gimmick that makes it fun, like the mine cart or the chess board or the item hunt in the library, though admittedly not every level is a winner, like the rotating blades or the platform bits but it makes the game feel super varied even when the tower can start to look a little samey at times. character designs all own across the board though, it's one of the cooler dante looks, though not as cool as 2, lady is great and her design here is cool, she's probably my favourite character in the series, this has the best virgil look but it's also the only look for him i really care for at all and the game has some really great enemy and boss designs like the reapers or cerberus, those bosses are all mostly very fun to fight too, agni and rudra and virgil were the highlights, but others like nevan and that first reaper fight were also really fun, the only ones i disliked were the cerberus and beowulf fights (and some others could be far too difficult unless you use beowulf) those reapers deserve special shoutouts though, i was so hype every time i saw one, they're so fun to fight and the sword clash mechanic they use is so cool to see and play around. one other design thing to note is that kazuma kaneko from atlus was involved here with the devil trigger form designs! in exchange for dante being in nocturne, so that's neat, it's one of the series best DT designs and some of his coolest work i think, he's such a cool artist.

it does have an amazing ost too by tetsuya shibata (of games like power stone, MVC2, many resi games like outbreak, 5 and 4 remake and even auto modelista) and kento hasegawa (of DMC4, resi outbreak and 3 remake, the ones justice games and el shaddai ), arguably the best main theme with devils never cry, really only tied with 4's shall never surrender, the battle themes own and it has the best shop theme, which is impressive considering how good 2's is, it's a great OST, memorable and iconic, but i do wish devils never cry had of played during at least one boss battle, it fits it so well and it deserves more than just the end credits fight (though it's a fun fight and you unlock a bonus ending if you do well enough!) . so as far as ports for this goes you have tons of options, the original old old first release is unique in that, while it has the least amount of stuff in it, it has some weird difficulty quirks where normal is hard, so it ends up being a unique port for difficulty, which is neat! but i'd never reccomend this as anything other than a novelty. the version you want to play is the dante's awakening special edition, every version released afterwards is this version. it has some quality of life stuff like bug fixes and fixed difficulty but it also gives you some much more substantial stuff, like the playable virgil campaign i mentioned before, some boss fights with the jester character and bloody palace mode from 2 making a comeback. BP here is more fun than it was in 2 because it feels more balanced overall, you won't see as much goat beam spam here and the combat depth means you'll want to spend a lot more time there, it's really good for grinding out orbs for the weapon upgrades and style XP and i'd reccomend doing it for your harder mode playthroughs, one other thing i want to note is how it actually has a bespoke arena this time, instead of being the recycled secret mission rooms that 2 had, helps make it feel higher effort. this is on ps2, pc and the HD versions on ps3 onward all use this version. though there is one more and its the best way to play, the switch version has all this plus it ads co op for bloody palace and the ability to use all of dante's styles and weapons at once, this is the one you want nowadays, but i would say to stick with the normal style for your first run since it gives the game a more unique feel, then go wild with the switching, but do know going in that this version has no physical release, even in the japanese boxed copy it's just a download code.

it's one of the longer games in the series, but it's not overly long, my run this time was about 10 hours but i was really rusty and played pretty slowly, yours may only run you about 6 or 7 hours, less if you play on easy, but there's a ton of replayability with things like vergil and all the cool difficulty options, usually i don't talk about difficulty options since i just stick to easier modes, but the ones here are really cool with things like heaven and hall which makes it so everything for you and the enemies is a one hit kill, it's so tense and fun to play, things like that and BP make it so you can easily sink dozens of hours into it if you really want to. the game was directed by the same person as 2, hidiaki itsuno who basically became the DMC ambassidor after this point, directing most of the projects but he also did tons of other stuff too like dragons dogma, star gladiator, auto modelista and even the part 5 jojo game. the team behind it was also the same, capcom production studio 1, involved in tons of cool projects like resi outbreak, onimusha dawn of dreams and MVC2! this would also be the main version of DMC represented in spinoffs like MVC or project x zone, even the reboot heavily takes from it with its virgil and dante, it's been very influencial on the series image and even 4 and 5 would follow it much more than 2, which is good in a way, but i would love to see more like 2, i really like 2 but with how good it is and how well loved it is its easy to see why it went that way, you should play it if you haven't, its well loved for a reason and it's one of the ps2's best games by a good margin, up there with the best action games for sure with the likes of bujingai and resi 4, which is as high praise as something can get.