Devil May Cry 3 was a game I played as far back as 2008 when I first finished DMC4 for the first time. I bought the original 2005 release because I thought I could handle the "hard" difficulty many at the time would love to say it has. I tried but without infinite Devil Trigger cheat I couldn't get anywhere. I did beat it on the HD collection over a decade ago but that was the Special Edition version. I did beat DMC1 2 months ago so that gave me the excuse to finally beat the Switch re release that I got years back. The Switch version of 3 comes with Style Switch from later games, being able to hold all guns and melee weapons without modding the game with "free style mode" as well as having the Special Edition's more forgiving normal difficulty and continue system. If you want to play DMC3 on console, this is very much the definitive way to play. A shame the PS4 and Xbox One version never got an update including "free style" mode and the other additions the Switch version has.
With all that said, when playing the game with Style Switch, it was never designed with this in mind since if you are not using one style throughout the whole campaign, it will take multiple playthroughs to get the base 4 styles up to level 3 especially if you are actively switching between them during moment to moment gameplay.
Anyways, on to the game, with all these additions in the Switch version, it's my favorite numbered game in the series since you get all the cool stuff from later titles minus the drawbacks like the extra playable characters I don't want to play as like Nero and especially V in DMC5.
First I'll start off with is the story and it's okay. It has well animated, well composed cutscenes, good music and the voice acting is solid but when ignoring all that, outside of the opening cutscene I just find it to be hard to invested in. The game is said to be and marketed as a Prequel to the entire franchise but that isn't true. The game seemingly expects you to know certain things about the franchise before jumping in. What happened during that year between Dante and Vergil met? Why does Dante resent his father so much? Vergil wanting power because he hates himself for not protecting his mother is mentioned but never fully shown. Who trained Dante and Vergil in the art of fighting? What was the specific catalyst that lead to Dante and Vergil hating each other? The whole story feels like how Halo Combat Evolved had all of it's backstory revealed in a novel or how it feels like a superhero adaptation where it expects you to read the comics before watching.
Dante going from a cocky arrogant guy to taking the conflict seriously just seems to kind of happen too, might be me missing things mainly due to him not having a scene of introspection in the story. Maybe he cared about Lady and her plight, my big issue is that he spent much of the story being arrogant or indiffernent towards everything and everyone around him and him being serious kind of just happens.
I enjoy the attempts at DMC3's story trying to make Vergil seem "impressive" by Worf Effecting some of the bosses Dante fights like Hell Vanguard and Beowulf and having Vergil beat them in a few seconds. At the same time, it doesn't really seem so impressive when they were arguably already got weakened by Dante beforehand or why Dante never tries to finish off either of them himself before getting away.
The story isn't all bad, Arkham is an entertaining villain. I do have a soft spot for villains like Emperor Palpatine where he manipulates all the parties involved for his own benefit. His voice actor also is like Ian McDirmaid in the Prequels in that he's over the top but he also knows when to take it back during the parts where he needs to act reserved and calm.
Now on to the gameplay, since I'm playing on the Switch version's "Free Style" mode. This means, I can do stuff like use Swordmaster to combo an enemy, switch to Gunsligner to use a special firearm attack like say Shotgun numbchucks to hit everyone surronding me, and use Trickster to dash out of the way. With all that said, some melee and firearms I got more use out of then others since due to their simplicity. Having to switch to Gunslinger just to use charge shot was very inconvenient since there is no other action mapped to holding down the shoot button. Rebellion was the easiest weapon for me to use since it covered my entire flank when attacking and it has high reach. Beowulf was another weapon I used since it's great for singular enemies and the Hyper Fist crazy combo for it I inherently find to be really cool and it does a lot of damage. I also really liked Beowulf's Swordmaster attack and it allows it to perform two functions in one of being a melee and projectile weapon. I used Spiral before getting Beowulf when it came to guns since it did a lot of damage and Kailana Ann was the best gun in the game but it is a late game gun.
I would personally like to have more attack shortcuts since letting go of the left stick to switch styles can lead me open for an attack but I slowly got used to it. However I did wish the Trickster dash and the dodge roll was combined into one since the former I find useful with attacks with long windup times like Beowulf's cage throws but the regular dodge is faster to pull off but also imprecise since at times I could do a roll or a flip instead.
One big negative is that the lack of Devil Trigger early game makes early sections on normal noticeably harder by comparison to later on since you have no way to heal outside of Devil Stars but once you get it, the game becomes easier by no means a cake walk but now casual players like me has a crutch to rely on outside of the occasional green orb drop but this isn't frequent enough to the point where it felt like I didn't need DT to feel competent early game.This also makes the game's camera less of an hinderance, at best it frames the actions in a servicable way but at worst it can lead to getting attacked off screen pretty off often. This was at it's worst in Mission 7 where you had to fight off multiple waves of enemies after destroying a ball and chain to get an item. The amount of times I got attack by the 7th Hells Lust's dash attacks are so numerous due to the amount of times they would just attack me and I can't see it coming, I'll give the game credit for them having an audio cue but it was so easy to just get hit by an off screen attack. This might've been the hardest part of the game for me.
The enemy types are also a mixed back especially later on in the game. Chessman, Blood Goyle, Dullahan, and the Fallen especially weren't the most fun to fight.
The Chessman are basically a game of hitting them with combos until they do an obviously telegraphed attack, they take up so much damage and all they do is just sit there until that said attack happens
Blood Goyles have an issues that the 7th Hell Lust has where they can often attack you from offscreen and do a lot of damage.
Dullahans require you to attack in a very specific spot and often trying to land an attack on that said weak spot is a game of luck since the hitboxes for them to be extremely strict on top of them moving around a lot before you can land a blow on them.
The Fallen are especially bad, the only thing that prevents me from being overly harsh on them is that they don't pop up frequently enough to geniunely get on my nerves. Their attacks do a lot of damage, they can phase through walls meaning that you won't always be able to land consistent blows on them on top of them having lots of health. When you combine all this, I'm thankful they only spawn in 2s because anything more than that would start to get me frustrated and I would get many more game overs.
The backtracking is well handled, it may confuse first time players but the game does do an okay job of slowing egging you on in the right direction, like using red orbs to guide the player or how each section in a mission is a self contained "zone" and it connects back to the start of the game. There might be times where you need to look up a walkthrough, but looking at them were too few and far between to be noticeably annoying from my experience.
The bosses are mostly good except for Arkham. With Beowulf and the Vergil fights being my favorites. They all have decent attack telegraphs and their attacks hit the sweet spot of timing your dodges right and not being too greedy with how whailing on them too much. Cereberus was the hardest of all the fights since you didn't have much upgrades and he pops up while some new players are just learning the game.
The Arkham fight is easily the worst since his attack telegraphs aren't the greatest, his attacks have a high reach and can sweep the whole area, and on top of that if you aren't using Rebellion for the fishes you have to kill before you can damage him again, the boss is going to be even harder and grating time since like I said before Rebellion covers your entire flank when doing combos and the fishes attack you from all sides.
Overall, DMC3 is an enjoyable game and despite my issues with it which can seem numerous, but as a whole, it's fun in the moment and that's what mainly counts. However much of my enjoyment of the game comes from the additions made in both the Special Edition and Switch versions. Playing as Dante the whole game also helped a big role as well.
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