The best Devil May Cry game to date.
The story takes place before the events of the first game. One evening Dante is attacked by evil forces from hell. Soon enough a giant tower of evil springs up and sees that his twin brother Virgil is somehow behind this. Along the way he meets up with a woman whom he decides to call Lady. She isn't particularly fond of Dante and is off in search of the mysterious man that's with Virgil. So it's up to Dante to stop his brother and to see exactly what's being planned. The story and characters are certainly more fleshed out this time around than the first game and the story remains interesting to follow through.
If you have ever played a Devil May Cry game, then you should be instantly familiar with the gameplay. The game combines the use of both swordplay and gunplay. You will be using a good variety of melee and ranged weapons to pull of stylish combos. Pulling off combos is important since the game grades you for the variety of techniques you pull off. Sticking to one weapon for too long will lower the stylish meter. Making a return is the devil trigger, which transforms Dante into a powerful demon. However, it doesn't last very long, but thankfully it regenerates by itself over time. The action that made the first game so great is improved in this game and it's just as over-the-top and intense. There are also a variety of fighting styles to choose from. There's the default trickster style (which helps you avoid enemies), Gunslinger (more gun-based moves), Sword Master (more sword based), and Royal Guard (defensive).
Familiar orbs of the series make a return. The red orbs are of course needed to buy new upgrades and items. This is one of the things that encourages replayability. The many bosses you'll face are very difficult and you're going to need plenty of items to stay alive. However, the price of each item will increase which means you'll need to go back and replay levels to get more red orbs. This can feel tedious to new comers who want to just continue through each level. The other orbs include blue orbs and fragments to increase health, purple orbs to increase your devil trigger state, and yellow orbs that act as continues.
Now there's the difficulty. Most people know that the normal mode here is the Japanese hard mode. While I have never played the original DMC3, it was both praised and criticized for its brutal difficulty. Aside from the obvious fact that when enemies hit you they take away a good sized chunk of your health, the AI is also very smart. They react differently based on your current plan of fighting. For example, if you spend a bunch of time just using ranged weapons, they are going to realize this and start teleporting or charging at you. In the special edition they don't take away as much health, but the AI isn't any less smarter. But once you die a few times, easy mode is then unlocked. If you think you're just not ready for the normal difficulty, then you can start there. But over time as you are going through the game and will start to get better since you're getting the ropes down and know what enemy patterns are.
There is also a good chunk of unlockable extras. There's a very hard mode of the game, a turbo mode which makes the game run much faster, a new boss, and the ability to play as your brother Vergil, just to name a few. However, Vergil only has one style to choose from and just goes through the same levels that Dante does. It would have been nice if he had have a few exclusive levels. But regardless, Vergil is still a good character to play as.
DMC3 is still one of the most technically impressive games on the PS2. The environments are very gritty and have an excellent attention to detail. Just as good as the environments are the character models and animations, which are superb. They are best shown off during the great cutscenes. The voice acting remains top notch throughout the entire game and the music is much better than the first DMC game providing a very metal emphasized soundtrack with the occasional orchestral sound.
To sum things up:
PROS:
-Improved and even more intense, over-the-top gameplay
-Provides an intense challenge that get's a little easier along the way
-Excellent technical presentation
-Good voice acting and music
-More fleshed out story and characters
-Nice unlockables
-Vergil is a good character to play as.
-A variety of weapons and styles to customize
CONS:
-Vergil could of had a few exclusive levels
-Replaying for red orbs can feel tedious
This game is certainly a game that hardcore gamers simply must own. To this day it remains as my favorite game in the series and is the reason why I love the series so much. This is one of the best games to have in your PS2 library, if not one of the best games ever made period. It improves upon the original version's difficulty while still being very challenging and the extra content adds plenty of replayability that will keep you busy for quite sometime. It's an experience that you should experience at least once, but before you know it you'll instantly get hooked.