the horrible invention of fixed camera angles in video games found its way into this game to ruin my time

I'm sorry...it's bad...

It's an important game, but it's in a genre obsolescence limbo that makes it hard to seriously recommend (just not as hard as DMC2). I think for those curious about experiencing the franchise in its entirety, it's worth starting here, as it can be said to be a quite solid game for its time, and then progressing in release order to avoid disappointment with crude gameplay and level design that weren't as refined yet.