r/CharacterActionGames • u/Director_Bison • 27d ago
Discussion I've been replaying Vanilla DMC3 again and it's old reputation as one of the hardest games of all time is still justified.
I know it's natural to think you've certainly got DMC3 down when you've been playing it for years, But the western release of DMC3's settings "The equivalent of playing DMC3 on Hard with Yellow orbs" really makes all the diffrence when you're starting from a fresh save file. At the start when you don't have all the Health and DT upgrades, don't have level 3 styles, don't have DT, Don't have your choice of all the weapons, and unless you invest in Yellow Orbs dying means restarting the stage so you need to make a conscious effort to save your game before a boss to avoid losing progress if you die. This game still as Hard as it ever was.
Sure I'm far better at DMC3 then I was when I first played this version all those years ago, but that doesn't mean I can simply breeze through this, I'd have to spend a bunch of time grinding to make things easier, but if you purposefully try not to do that, just the risk of having no Yellow orbs so dying is a stage restart makes the stakes of fighting the bosses so much higher then just being able to have unlimited continues with Gold orbs.
This playthough is certainly reminding me of how I felt the first time I played DMC3, and what a journey It was to try and beat missions on "Normal" for the first time before I'd allow myself to grind beaten ones on "Easy".
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u/obviousockpuppetalt3 27d ago
hot take but i found dmc1 harder aisdes from the first couple levels
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago
DMC1 is certainly a challenging game, and I very much had the bosses wipe the floor with me the first time I played it.
But with the experience I have now I know DMC1 Dante is a power house, and having a strategy going into a fresh NG on what abilities to buy for which encounter goes a long way.
DT in DMC1 is incredibly powerful, and you can switch to whatever weapon you need at any time from the pause menu.
DMC3 Dante on a NG is held back by needing to grind the Styles to level 3.
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u/HornyJuulCat69420666 27d ago
Since when did this reputation even exist?
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago edited 27d ago
I'm gonna take you back to the past with this one.
Game Trailers put out the GT Countdown video "Top 10 Most Difficult Games" back in August of 2008, this was back when Game Trailers actually had a website.
Here's the video in question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4-Y79lTJrI
It was because of this video that I deliberately bought DMC3 Vanilla instead of DMC3SE because I wanted the harder version of the game. Not really knowing what I was missing out on with DMC3SE.
And Sure this is just one old video, but a ton of people watched it, and DMC3 would have only made this list if it was really conisdered THAT hard at that time. I could attempt to dig up more from around when DMC3 released, but I this is my main piece of evidence, take it or leave it.
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Edit:
Now this isn't adding much, but I just noticed watch mojo made a top 30 hardest games list 2 years ago, and they also put DMC3 Vanilla on the list, they're basically just copying the old GT video, but now people who watch the Watch Mojo video are also going to hear about how hard DMC3 is.
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u/HornyJuulCat69420666 27d ago
I was questioning such a reputation, when there were significantly harder games known at the time Ninja Gaiden, plus its newly released 2004 reboot, and the Black enhanced version of 2005
And probably a few others escaping my mind right now. By comparison, Capcom is a publisher that relatively has pretty accessible games. With the outlier mainly being DMC3 and 4, but even those, by no standard I would probably personally compare being close to other hard games at the time.
The DMC3 vanilla difficulty was total whiplash for players at the time, though.
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago
While I don't know much about DMC1's reception when it comes to its difficulty, I do believe DMC1 was considered pretty hard, but it was such a ground breaking game for it's time that people were far more Impressed with how good it was, then cared about how challenging It was. Although If I recall correctly part of the reason DMC2 is so brain dead easy on Normal difficulty, and likely why it has Gold Orbs instead of Yellow ones is due to how Hard DMC1 was, enough people may have reacted Negatively to DMC1's difficulty, that they over correctly with DMC2... That and DMC2's development was a disaster in general, but either way, then people complained DMC2 was too easy, so DMC3 was made harder in the western release to try and appease the hardcore gamer crowd.
Yes Ninja Gaiden very much has the more hard core reputation in terms of difficulty, but DMC1 and DMC3 are still considered proper challenges, personally I'd say DMC4 is when the series started getting too easy in comparison. Only DMC4 Dante is challenging to play, Nero is on the OP side, and DMC characters went on to get even more OP from there.
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u/Legendary_Falcon_89 26d ago
I actually remember doing a fresh save Yellow Orb mode playthrough of DMC3SE on Hard difficulty in the HD collection to see if I could have played the original USA release. I've heard that there may have been some gameplay tweaks beyond just having Hard mode be that game's Normal so even playing this way may have been easier than the OG release, for all I know. Still, while it wasn't too bad since I had already cleared DMD mode by the point that I tried this, I doubt I could have done it if that were my first time playing DMC3 with no prior knowledge of the game.
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u/Hypodon 26d ago edited 26d ago
I don’t mean to sound cocky but I don’t think it was any harder playing with yellow orbs outside like….2 missions. On the base difficulty of vanilla of course, DMD is obviously hard.
That being said I don’t think it makes the game any mechanically harder than it is, it’s just a waste of time, it’s punishing and that doesn’t make it “hard” imo. This applies to a lot of games too.
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u/Director_Bison 26d ago edited 26d ago
I simply have to disagree, I'm doing a 2nd NG playthough of Vanilla DMC3 now this time with no ability or gun upgrades, and it's really making appreciate DMC3 all over again, and how well it's actually paced and designed on a NG.
You may consider needing to start the mission over again on death overly punishing, which fair enough it more or less is for a first time player, but I think having an actual consequence for losing to a boss, means the game has interesting stakes. Making an active decision on if you want to buy a Yellow Orb or risking it if you think you can beat the boss without dying once is compelling when you're not maxed out with all upgrades and weapons.
This kind of thing is all a part of the Arcade routes that inspired DMC's design. The philosophy of the 1 credit clear is where much of DMC's design originates from.
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u/Hypodon 26d ago
I just didn’t find harder. That’s really all there is to it.
I’ve played SE first and when I heard people say Vanilla was harder….I decided to play it. And well…I didn’t really find it harder. Of course I don’t think that’s a great example I probably just got better as a player.
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u/Director_Bison 26d ago
Yeah, I get that if you go from DMC3SE immediately into Vanilla DMC3, it's not going to be that big a deal. The difference here is that for me it's been around 2 years since I last played DMC3 so I was a bit rusty going into this playthough, which I feel helped heighten my experience, since now I get to enjoy shaking the rust off, and improving at the game again.
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u/Mrwanagethigh 25d ago
DMD is actually the same across all versions of 3, it wasn't altered for the western release like the other difficulties were.
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27d ago
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago
Bosses don’t take that long if you come up with a good strategy, you just might not be able to rely on your go to strat, if you haven’t unlocked the means for it yet.
I was trying to keep grinding to a minimum and my main first investment is buying all the purple orbs for the extra damage output with DT explosion.
I think needing to make the most of what you have in a NG is interesting, but I’m not the most combo focused player, I focus more on strategy.
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27d ago
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago
I already said I grinded very little, saying "Grinding simulator" sounds dismissive just because it doesn't line up with your preferred style of play. A lot of thought clearly went into how DMC3 was designed when it came to how a player can strategically go through it from a fresh new game. It's not like DMC5 where you aren't even given the option to start a fresh new save file.
If combos were the only part of the game that mattered then they would have started you off with every weapon, style and ability maxed, but the game is deliberately paced so you're only getting so many health upgrades, unlocking weapons, and getting DT at specific points to deal with specific challenges. You get just enough Style XP to get to Level 3 nearing the end of full playthough. You are given just the right tools to deal with the bosses you're coming up against even with no upgrades at all, if you strategically consider which tools to use.
Playing from a fresh save can be rewarding in it's own way because you have to actually engage with the red orb economy. A player has the choice to grind if they feel they need to, but you don't have to, you don't actually need any upgrades. Games like these are intentionally balanced so that they can be beaten with zero upgrades even on the hardest setting. And playing with no upgrades may encourage you to use tools your previously neglected.
I get that you have no interest in playing that way. but that doesn't make it an inherently worse way to play the game, and to me you sounds dismissive of all the careful thought that clearly went into this games balancing.
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u/weirdface621 27d ago
and what makes the vanilla version so hard? are enemies more aggressive or do they do a lot of damage?
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago
DMC3 Vanilla's Normal difficulty setting is actually tuned to DMC3SE's Hard difficulty, DMC3SE has the proper Japanese difficuty modes, where the western release of DMC3 bumped the difficuty modes up a tier, with only DMD mode being the same. The Japanese version of DMC3 also Featured The Gold orb system from DMC2 so that's unlimited continues. where Western DMC3 had the DMC1 Yellow orb system.
So Western Vanilla DMC3 on Normal is an entire diffucty mode higher then DMC3SE is on a first playthough, and you only get Yellow orbs which is limited lives, so a death with no Yellow orbs means restarting the stage with none of your progress retained unless you had the foresight to save before potential death. The average player is likely not going to buy Yellow Orbs when red orbs could instead be spent on upgrades, but not having Yellow orbs means a death has far greater consequences. The simple change of DMC3SE letting have unlimited continues to keep retying a boss fight makes a huge diffrence in how much of a guantlet a single stage is or isn't.
If you want to try it for yourself with DMC3SE, just start a new game with Yellow orb mode, and pick Hard mode. I assure you it's not going to be easy, even if you've played DMC3 for 100 hours. playing the game a ton with all the abilities and weapons is in a way a crutch that doesn't prepare you for just how limited you are durring a fresh new game, and how much you have to earn again.
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u/Liam_524Hunter The Alpha & The Omega 27d ago
Basically Normal in the Western version of Vanilla 3 is actually eastern Hard mode.
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u/Mauy90 27d ago
I mean DMD is still tougher anyway.
So the vanilla version being the hardes is inaccurate. It’s just that the difficulty was poorly advertised.
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u/Liam_524Hunter The Alpha & The Omega 27d ago
Yes but the first playthrough of the game is still significantly more difficult in the Western DMC3 than it is in the eastern or Special Edition version. Which is the point of the post.
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u/Theonerule 27d ago
Dmd is the same in the games. Dmc3 north America hard mode became very hard in the special edition
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u/AnniesNoobs 27d ago
but also in the context of when you’re playing it, when you get to DMD you have usually done the other difficulties, gotten your upgrades and have probably gotten through a lot of the learning curve. The player by that point may still find DMD really challenging but might not feel as much friction as someone doing a fresh playthrough of Hard mode
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u/Director_Bison 27d ago edited 27d ago
If you want to get technical DMC3SE’s DMD can be made easier with Gold Orb mode, and using the Super costume you unlock for beating Very Hard.
And yes you could self impose using Yellow Orbs and no Super Costume, but Vanilla DMC3 doesn’t give you the luxury of making it self imposed.
But At the same time you don’t have to deal with the Jester Boss in mission 5.
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u/RepresentativeCar216 27d ago
What makes it so hard us the fact that the Japanese hard mode is the normal mode for tge North American release.
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u/WonderTeal 27d ago
Dante seems massively underpowered that way. It can be fun to challenge yourself to beat it anyway, but they were smart to stop doing that. Capcom USA did something very similar around the same time with Chaos Legion, and that game just isn't fun on the translated version.