I've come to a realization, and am ashamed to say this about a Devil May Cry title...
Playing through this on Son of Sparda mode (Hard mode, why did they feel the need to rename you? -_-), I've come to realize something about why I don't view this title as highly as I would otherwise.

This is the first Devil May Cry title to EVER feature fake difficulty as opposed to real difficulty. Even 2, as horrible as it was, only had a couple of the staples of fake difficulty, mostly in the form of prolonging fights.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, perhaps this link will explain it better.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

The camera angles in this game have been worse than the others by leaps and bounds. Fights have been placed in the absolute worst places, often to abuse those very same camera angles. Controls are strangely less forgiving than the earlier renditions of the game... There's a time limit in the bloody palace... The list goes on and on.

God, someone needs to smack whoever made all these decisions for this game...